Health Orientation as a Psychographic Framework for Understanding Physical Exercise Behavior

The consistent association between regular physical exercise and positive health outcomes presents a compelling case for investigating the differences between individuals who exercise regularly and those who do not. Based on a randomized cross-sectional survey of 1,201 households, this study adopts a psychographic framework to investigate the role of health orientation in physical exercise behavior. This study extends the concept of health orientation, operationalized as five psychographic subscales (health information orientation, preventative orientation, exercise orientation, healthy eating orientation, and health information efficacy) as well as three behavioral constructs (sedentary behavior, BMI and cigarette smoking) to understand physical exercise behavior. The results show significant differences between regular exercisers and non-exercisers, and suggest that a psychographic framework based on health orientation could offer a more holistic approach for understanding physical exercise behavior by highlighting the treatment of the whole individual. Physical exercise, as a specific health behavior, is in fact interlinked with other health behaviors through an underlying health orientation toward health issues in general.