Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of television priming on exercise related attitudes. Participants (N = 121) were randomly assigned to watch clips from American Idol orthe Biggest Loser. Participants self-reported leisure time physical activity, exercise attitudes and thoughts about the video before receiving a debriefing statement. A 2 (video condition) by 2 (active or non-active classification) ANCOVA with affective attitudes as the dependent variable was conducted. Vigor from the mood subscale was included as a covariate. Participants in the Biggest Loser group displayed worse explicit affective attitudes towards exercise: F (1, 116) = 3.85, p = .05, ?2 = .03. Vigor was a significant covariate in this relationship: F (1, 116) = 10.28, p < .005. No differences were found between active and inactive participant's affective attitudes. Finally, participants reported many negative comments about exercise (N = 30) and few positive comments (N = 3). These findings provide some confirmation of the concerns expressed by Maibach (2007) and Christenson and Ivancin (2006) regarding exercise depictions in reality shows. Regardless of an individual's activity level, the unpleasant depictions of exercise on the Biggest Loser could influence thoughts and attitudes towards exercise. Therefore, the show may be antagonistic toward health promotion messages that advocate exercise as enjoyable.
