Researchers at Otago University studied 1,600 New Zealand women aged between 40and 50 in the first nationwide research of its kind anywhere to examine the linkbetween motivation and body weight.
The women were asked to rate the degree to which each different style of motivationfor eating healthily applied to them, and were surveyed on their specific food andeating habits.
More self-determined and autonomous reasons for eating healthily included enjoyingcreating healthy meals or viewing eating healthily as integral to one’s lifestyle orvalues, study co-author Dr Caroline Horwath said in a statement Monday.
More “controlled” motivation involved reasons such as being nagged to eat healthily orfeeling expected to do so.
“We found that every 10-unit increase in women’s scores for autonomous motivationto eat healthily was associated with a 1.4- kilogram lower body weight, which wasequivalent to a 2-percent lower BMI (body mass index) in a woman of average BMI,”said Horwath.
The results suggested that even a modest decrease in controlled motivation couldequate to almost 1 kg lower weight, she said.