Physical Activity Information Seeking and Advertising Recall

Abstract

The purposes of this research were to examine the characteristics of those who look for physical activity-related information, where they find it, and to examine what types of physical activity-related advertisements are recalled (i.e., publicly funded or commercial). These purposes were tested using secondary data analyses from two population health surveys. Results from the first survey (n = 1211) showed gender, age, education, and activity-level differences in who is more likely to search for physical activity-related information. Adding the goal of being active into the model made age and activity level no longer significant but gender and education remained significant factors. The Internet was the most often cited source of physical activity information. The second survey (n = 1600) showed that adults 55 years of age or older and participants with the least amount of education were more than twice as likely to name commercial advertisements than were participants aged 18–54 years or those with more education. These results help further our understanding of how publicly funded promotional campaigns fare against commercial advertising and also highlight the need to understand physical activity information-seeking behavior on the Internet and its implications for health promotion.

Acknowledgments

Tanya R. Berry is supported by the Canada Research Chairs Program and by a Population Health Investigator Award from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, and Ronald C. Plotnikoff is supported by an Applied Public Health Chair from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and a Health Scholar award from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. This research was supported by an operating grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.