Young adults are at risk of obesity and weight gain due to a variety of factors, including major life changes such as moving out and adulthood. To date, there have been few programs that have provided highly personalized, in-the-moment messaging to promote weight management among young adults. Just-In-Time-Adaptive-Interventions (JITAI) have the potential to promote adherence to daily weight-related behaviors in weight loss interventions for young adults, by providing the right type of intervention support at the right time. However, limited research has examined the relationships between motivations to engage in weight management behaviors and adherence to daily goals within these interventions. The objective of this study was to investigate whether baseline motivations (autonomous (AM), controlled (CM), relative autonomy index (RAI)) and changes in motivations were associated with goal adherence and weight loss in a 12-week pilot micro-randomized trial of JITAI messaging among young adults (n=52). Using independent sample t-tests, we compared participants who reported higher vs. lower motivation (to eat a healthy diet, exercise, weigh themselves) on achievement of daily goals (eating, active minutes, weighing) and weight loss over 12 weeks.
Nathan Adams (Sat,) studied this question.