Kylee Chenault
My name is Kylee Chenault and I am a junior at Indiana University studying Community Health and minoring in Gerontology. I worked with Dr. Lesa Huber, Dr. Jeanne Johnston, and Jimmy McDonnell on the Tracking Together Study, which analyzes the simultaneous use of human and dog activity trackers. I am currently participating in the School of Public Health - Bloomington honors program and I am planning to pursue a master’s degree in genetic counseling following my undergraduate degree.
Walks are Better with a Dog at Your Side: Salient Beliefs about Physical Activity and DogWalking
Kylee Chenault, Jimmy McDonnell, Sarah Collins, Susan Middlestadt, WasanthaJayawardene, Lesa Huber, Jeanne Johnston
Objective: Increasing dog walking may be an effective strategy for increasing physical activity. We use salient belief elicitation, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), to better understand dog owners’ underlying beliefs about walking their dogs.
Methods: Dog owners (N=59 of 91 participants, age24 – 65) answered a survey based on the TPB, with closed-ended demographic and behavioral questions and open-ended belief elicitation questions. The results on the closed-ended four global TPB constructs are reported elsewhere. Thematic and frequency analyses were performed for open-ended questions exploring advantages, disadvantages, facilitators and barriers of dog-walking.
Results: People perceive diverse advantages of dog-walking for themselves and for their dogs, with exercise being the top advantage (29% walk to get exercise; 25% to exercise their dog). Being outdoors is an advantage for 24%; 10% believed getting their dog outside was advantageous. Dog-walking improves mental and emotional health for humans (27%); dogs are seen as happier and better behaved (19%). Disadvantages included being exposed to bad weather(25%) and not having time for other things (17%). Facilitators were good weather (31%) and good places to walk (17%). Barriers include bad weather (36%), work and personal time constraints (33%), no good place to walk (7%), and dog misbehavior (14%).
Conclusions: More people perceive advantages/facilitators in walking their dog than disadvantages/barriers, suggesting that dog-walking has the potential as an intervention to increase physical activity. Underlying beliefs about dog walking vary widely suggesting that individualized approaches may be most successful in increasing physical activity.
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