Exercise Avoidance Motivation, Time Management and Exercise Procrastination among Obese Female Students

The aim of the present study is to investigate whether Exercise Avoidance Motivation, Time management and Exercise Procrastination vary in terms of varied BMI categories and exercise habits among female College and University students of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. For this study a cross-sectional survey design was adopted. Data have been collected from 227 female students from various Colleges and Universities in Kolkata following multistage stratified random sampling. The total participants were categorized as per three BMI categories i.e., Normal, Overweight and Obese consisting of 80, 72 and 75 participants respectively. Further the participants were categorized as per their exercise habit into two groups, i.e., regular exercise group and no exercise group consisting of 122 and 105 participants respectively. A total of six sub-groups were considered i.e., Normal, regular exercise group (N=45); Normal, no exercise group (N=35); Overweight, regular exercise group (N=30); Overweight, no exercise group (N=42); Obese, regular exercise group (N=30) and lastly, Obese, no exercise group (N=45). Information schedule was administered for screening as per inclusion and exclusion criteria, along with BMI measurement. Three standardized scales namely, Exercise Avoidance Motivation Scale (Vartanian and Shaprow, 2008), Time Management Competency Scale (Sansanwal and Parashar, 2007), Procrastination in Exercise Scale (Kelly and Walton, 2020) were administered. The results have shown that BMI has a significant role on Exercise Avoidance Motivation, Time management and Exercise Procrastination. The results were elaborated on the basis of earlier relevant literature, theories and cultural understanding of female students in West Bengal. These findings are crucial for developing effective interventions to combat obesity and its comorbidities and promote holistic health behavior in India.