Abstract
Implementing healthy lifestyle habits can take a great effort and sticking to such prescriptions is complicated. Failure rates amongst people seeking to adopt a healthier diet are estimated to be around 80%. Exploring the network of meanings that an individual associates with adopting habits such as healthy eating, maintaining the correct weight, and practising physical exercise can reveal the inconsistencies, obstacles, or psychological conflicts that hinder change and target-achievement. Fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) can be of great utility in this task as they allow us to explore the structure of the personal meaning system of an individual as well as determine any obstacles and simulate hypothetical scenarios that project its future evolution. This can help to identify the foci of cognitive conflicts that hinder the adoption of healthy habits and establish more effective personalised intervention programmes that make it easier to maintain these habits.
Highlights
In 2004, as part of its policies on disease prevention, the World Health Organization approved a global strategy on diet, physical activity, and health [1], which sought to present the best available evidence on the influence of diet and physical activity on disease
Once the structure and dynamof the personal construct system (PCS) have been determined, the possibility of predicting change is very valuable for ics of the PCS have been determined, the possibility of predicting change is very valuable determining how subjects will evolve and where they will and will not have problems for determining how subjects will evolve and where they will and will not have problems in relation to cognitive conflicts that may even impede the achievement of their desire in relation to cognitive conflicts that may even impede the achievement of their desire for for change
Within the field of the adoption of healthy habits and through the simulated case Within the field of the adoption of healthy habits and through the simulated case we we have presented, we can see the value of this methodology in anticipating difficulties have presented, we can see the value of this methodology in anticipating difficulties in in adopting habits, even those that are desired by the subject
Summary
In 2004, as part of its policies on disease prevention, the World Health Organization approved a global strategy on diet, physical activity, and health [1], which sought to present the best available evidence on the influence of diet and physical activity on disease. The constructs around what it means to maintain healthy lifestyle habits and the psychological implications of following health advice are fundamental in determining whether such indications of incorporating healthy habits, diet, and exercise are successful, providing that there are no other metabolic complications preventing this outcome It is, essential to identify the psychological obstacles (specific psychological variables or cognitive conflicts) that prevent or hinder the desired process of a person and the psychological variables that facilitate that process in order to create intervention programmes that offer the highest possible level of efficiency. The ability to represent the structure of a PCS of an individual, determine the implications and relationships between certain constructs and others, and record their cognitive inconsistencies or conflicts would be of great help in identifying where the difficulties of the system lie in achieving the desired goals of adopting healthy habits. This paper proposes the use of FCMs for this purpose [19]
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