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Perception of Exercise Difficulty Predicts Weight Regain in Formerly Overweight Women
Obesity, 10/14/09

Brock DW et al. – The association between RPE and weight regain suggests that perception of exercise difficulty is an important predictor of weight regain following a weight–loss intervention.

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David W. Brock, 10/14/09

Participation in physical activity is at an all time low in the United States. This is a major causal factor in the current obesity and related chronic disease public health crises. To date, long-term success in weight loss programs that utilize caloric restriction and exercise as the primary intervention features have reported dismal success rates. This is largely attributable to individual-level barriers to achieving the recommended amount of daily physical activity. It has been previously reported that “perception” of exercise difficulty is related to bodyweight: heavier individuals will naturally have a greater physiological demand when exercising and therefore be more inclined to perceive exercise as more difficult than a lighter individual. This is intuitive, but our recent findings, for the first time, demonstrate that the “perception” of exercise difficulty may precede weight gain. This phenomenon may predispose towards less engagement in physical activity and predispose for obesity and related poor health outcomes. As weight increases and function decreases, this phenomenon will be exacerbated. Indeed we report that individuals who “perceive” exercise as more difficult after the completion of a weight loss program that both improved fitness and normalized body weight were less likely to engage in physical activity and regained more weight back in a 1-year follow-up period. Possible explanations for this finding may be deficiencies in higher-order brain function, specifically self-regulatory capacity, often referred to as “executive function.” Deficiencies in executive function have been related to poor health outcomes in similar public health problems that require consistent goal-directed behavior. Our research group is currently exploring these possible mechanistic explanations with the hopes of developing novel interventions that will have a substantial impact on one of the most pressing public health pandemics of our time.

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