Knowledge and attitudes towards healthy eating and physical activity:

Figure 6: Responses of adults to the question ‘What, if anything, prevents you from
living a healthier lifestyle’
Eating habits/eating the wrong foods
Family influence/what family will do
Access to facilities/healthier choices
Other responsibilities/caring/ child care
Can't be bothered
Lack of will power
Cost
Other health problems I have
I already live a healthy lifestyle
Time
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
Source: TGI, 2008/09
The TGI data showed significant differences across BMI categories (see Appendix 3,
Table 4). Respondents who were obese or morbidly obese were significantly more
likely to regard ‘other health problems I have’ as a barrier to a healthy lifestyle, and
were significantly less likely to believe that their lifestyle was already healthy than the
total sample. Obese respondents were also more likely to report ‘lack of will power’
and ‘can’t be bothered’ as barriers to a healthier lifestyle.
vi. Facilitators of healthy eating
Both the HSE 2007 and the LIDNS 2005 asked questions to identify what factors could
support individuals to eat more healthily. The HSE 2007 asked respondents to choose
as many factors as applied from a list of 12 options, including the categories
‘something else’ and ‘none of these’. The most frequently cited factors to were:
• own ill health (48%)
• being motivated (38%)
• advice from a doctor or nurse (37%)
The LIDNS 2005 asked people an open-response question about what factors would
encourage them to change their diet. The most frequently cited factor was ‘more
money/healthier food being less expensive’ (42%). See Figure 7 for the full results.
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