Goal Setting and Decisional Balance Applied to Physical Activity and Fruit & Vegetable Consumption

Goal setting has become an integral part of physical activity and dietary interventions; however, few studies have examined the theoretical constructs that drive goal-setting theory. To address the limitations and gaps in the literature, we designed an 8-week health behavior intervention for a racially and ethnically diverse sample of older adults. The primary aim of this study was to determine whether older adults randomized to a goal-setting intervention for physical activity or fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake would make significant improvements in physical activity or F&V intake. The secondary aim of this study was to determine whether participating in goal-setting interventions was associated with changes in theoretical constructs related to goal-setting. We hypothesized that older adults assigned to the physical activity condition would significantly increase metabolic minutes (MET-minutes) of physical activity from baseline to follow-up and that participants assigned to the F&V intake condition would significantly increase mean servings of F&V. In addition, we hypothesized that mean scores of goal specificity, difficulty, effort, commitment, persistence, barrier self-efficacy, and task self-efficacy would significantly increase from baseline to follow-up for both groups.