Psychological Intervention for Increased Motivation Towards Physical Activity and Weight Loss

Abstract

A case study is presented with a 22-year-old female (student and basketball coach) who wanted to motivate herself to lose weight and develop healthy habits (good nutrition and regular physical exercise). The “Cantón’s Giraffe” model was used as the basis of the intervention, which consists of four well-differentiated parts that are: the “head” or goal; the “neck” or expectations x value; the “body” or self-esteem, self-efficacy and self-concept; and the base “legs” that refer to the four ways of obtaining information (direct experience, indirect experience, verbal persuasion and psychophysiological symptoms). The analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data was carried out through methodological triangulation, measuring the parts of the Cantón’s Giraffe model qualitatively in the participant, and quantitatively for psychological well-being and self-efficacy. The results show an improvement in the motivational variables related to the parts of the model, in line with the improvement in the quantitative scores for psychological well-being and self-efficacy. There was also an increase and maintenance of healthy habits of nutrition, physical activity and proper thinking. These results are in line with those obtained in previous similar studies.