Are You Ready? Introduction to Behavior Change
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Article By: The Weight Watchers Research Department
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Understanding how people make behavioral changes is key to helping modify their lifestyle in positive ways.
By gaining knowledge about why and how people make lasting behavior changes, healthcare professionals can develop enhanced techniques to help modify their lifestyle in positive ways.
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Making changes in behavior is key to sustained weight loss, but changing behavior is neither simple nor easy. Rather, human behavior is a complex series of interrelated events. Understanding the ins and outs of behavior change is an intense area of psychological research. Gaining knowledge about why and how people are able to make lasting behavior changes can help people make positive lifestyle changes to lose weight and keep it off.
The Stages of Change (also called the transtheoretical model of behavior change) was developed by James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente in the mid-1980s. The model is based on a finding that people go through six stages of change on their way to making a sustained health-related behavior change.
| Stages and Description of the Change Model1
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| Precontemplation
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Does not recognize that there is a problem
Denies there is a problem
Does not see the problem as serious
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| Contemplation
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Recognizes the need for behavior change
Is thinking about the pros and cons of changing the behavior
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| Preparation
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Experimenting with small pieces of the behavior change
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| Action
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Making definitive changes in aspects of the behavior
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| Maintenance
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Maintaining new behavior over time
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| Relapse
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Full or partial return to previous behaviors, often accompanied by negative feelings
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Among people not currently making an active behavior change, it is estimated that 40% are in precontemplation, 40% are in contemplation and 20% are in preparation.
Matching the Next Step
At the core of the model is the need to determine the person's stage of change and to match the "next step" to get them to the next stage2. For example, a person in the precontemplation stage would be guided to learn about the health consequences of engaging in the desired behavior change with a goal of getting her to think about it (i.e., contemplation) as opposed to providing specific "do this now" instructions, an appropriate guidance for those in the action stage.
In addition, research has shown that people are likely to be at different stages of change for different behaviors. One study looked at the stages of change for four different health behaviors: exercise, protection from sun exposure, smoking and dietary fat consumption. Among the people who were surveyed, less that 20% were in the same stage of change for all four behaviors. The study's conclusion focused on the need to provide guidance based on people's stages of readiness for each behavior being addressed.3
This content is reviewed regularly. Last updated September 24, 2009.
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Other Science Library Topics:
1Zimmerman GL, Olsen CG, Bosworth MF. A 'stages of change' approach to helping patients change behavior. Am Fam Physician. 2000 Mar 1;61(5):1409-16.
2Prochaska JO, Velicer WF. The transtheoretical model of health behavior change. Am J Health Promot. 1997 Sep-Oct;12(1):38-48.
3Herrick AB, Stone WJ, Mettler MM. Stages of change, decisional balance, and self-efficacy across four health behaviors in a worksite environment. Am J Health Promot. 1997 Sep-Oct;12(1):49-56.
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