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Exercise, physical activity, and self-determination theory: A systematic review

Pedro j teixeira.

1 Faculty of Human Kinetics, Technical University of Lisbon, Estrada da Costa, 1495-688, Cruz Quebrada, Portugal

Eliana V Carraça

David markland.

2 School of Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, UK

Marlene N Silva

Richard m ryan.

3 Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

Motivation is a critical factor in supporting sustained exercise, which in turn is associated with important health outcomes. Accordingly, research on exercise motivation from the perspective of self-determination theory (SDT) has grown considerably in recent years. Previous reviews have been mostly narrative and theoretical. Aiming at a more comprehensive review of empirical data, this article examines the empirical literature on the relations between key SDT-based constructs and exercise and physical activity behavioral outcomes.

This systematic review includes 66 empirical studies published up to June 2011, including experimental, cross-sectional, and prospective studies that have measured exercise causality orientations, autonomy/need support and need satisfaction, exercise motives (or goal contents), and exercise self-regulations and motivation. We also studied SDT-based interventions aimed at increasing exercise behavior. In all studies, actual or self-reported exercise/physical activity, including attendance, was analyzed as the dependent variable. Findings are summarized based on quantitative analysis of the evidence.

The results show consistent support for a positive relation between more autonomous forms of motivation and exercise, with a trend towards identified regulation predicting initial/short-term adoption more strongly than intrinsic motivation, and intrinsic motivation being more predictive of long-term exercise adherence. The literature is also consistent in that competence satisfaction and more intrinsic motives positively predict exercise participation across a range of samples and settings. Mixed evidence was found concerning the role of other types of motives (e.g., health/fitness and body-related), and also the specific nature and consequences of introjected regulation. The majority of studies have employed descriptive (i.e., non-experimental) designs but similar results are found across cross-sectional, prospective, and experimental designs.

Overall, the literature provides good evidence for the value of SDT in understanding exercise behavior, demonstrating the importance of autonomous (identified and intrinsic) regulations in fostering physical activity. Nevertheless, there remain some inconsistencies and mixed evidence with regard to the relations between specific SDT constructs and exercise. Particular limitations concerning the different associations explored in the literature are discussed in the context of refining the application of SDT to exercise and physical activity promotion, and integrating these with avenues for future research.

Introduction

Physical activity and exercise, when undertaken regularly, are highly beneficial for health, and for physical and psychological well-being [e.g., [ 1 ]. Yet, only a minority of adults in modern societies reports engaging in physical exercise at a level compatible with most public health guidelines [ 2 ]. For instance, 2009 data indicate that, on a typical week, 60% of adults in Europe engaged in no physical exercise or sports [ 3 ]. In the US, less than 50% of adults are considered regularly physically active [ 4 ] while in Canada new accelerometer data shows that only 15% of adults meet national physical activity recommendations [ 5 ]. Such findings suggest that many people lack sufficient motivation to participate in the 150 minutes of moderately intense exercise or physical activity a per week recommended [ 6 ]. Indeed, approximately 40% of Europeans agree with the statement: “Being physically active does not really interest me – I would rather do other things with my spare time” [ 3 ].

Lack of motivation can broadly be explained by two orders of factors. First, as highlighted in the previous statistic, people may not be sufficiently interested in exercise, or value its outcomes enough to make it a priority in their lives [ 7 ]. Many individuals experience competing demands on their time from educational, career, and family obligations, possibly at the expense of time and resources that could be invested in exercising regularly. Second, some people may not feel sufficiently competent at physical activities, feeling either not physically fit enough or skilled enough to exercise, or they may have health limitations that present a barrier to activity [ 8 ]. Whether it be low interest or low perceived competence, the physical activity participation data indicate that many people are either unmotivated (or amotivated ), having no intention to be more physically active, or are insufficiently motivated in the face of other interests or demands on their time.

In addition to those who are unmotivated, another source of short-lived persistence in exercise behaviors comes from people who do express personal motivation to exercise regularly, yet initiate exercise behaviors with little follow through. Specifically, a significant percentage of people may exercise because of controlled motivations, where participation in activities like going to the gym or running regularly is based on a feeling of “having to” rather than truly “wanting to” participate [ 7 ]. Controlled forms of motivation, which by definition are not autonomous (i.e., they lack volition), are predominant when the activity is perceived primarily as a means to an end and are typically associated with motives or goals such as improving appearance or receiving a tangible reward [ 9 ]. One hypothesis then is that the stability of one’s motivation is at least partially dependent on some of its qualitative features, particularly the degree of perceived autonomy or of an internal perceived locus of causality [ 10 ]. That is, the level of reflective self-endorsement and willingness associated with a behavior or class of behaviors should be associated with greater persistence. An utilitarian approach to exercise (and to exercise motivation), such as might be prevalent in fitness clubs or other settings where exercise is externally prescribed, could thus be partially responsible for the high dropout rate observed in exercise studies [e.g., [ 11 ]. In fact, the pervasiveness of social and medical pressures toward weight loss, combined with externally prescriptive methods may be ill-suited to promote sustained increases in population physical activity levels.

In sum, large numbers of individuals are either unmotivated or not sufficiently motivated to be physically active, or are motivated by types of externally-driven motivation that may not lead to sustained activity. This highlights the need to look more closely at goals and self-regulatory features associated with regular participation in exercise and physical activity. Self-determination theory (SDT) is uniquely placed among theories of human motivation to examine the differential effects of qualitatively different types of motivation that can underlie behavior [ 12 ]. Originating from a humanistic perspective, hence fundamentally centered on the fulfillment of needs, self-actualization, and the realization of human potential, SDT is a comprehensive and evolving macro-theory of human personality and motivated behavior [ 12 ]. In what follows we will briefly describe key concepts formulated within SDT (and tested in SDT empirical studies) that are more relevant to physical activity and exercise, all of which will be implicated in our empirical review.

First, SDT distinguishes between intrinsic and extrinsic types of motivation regulating one’s behavior. Intrinsic motivation is defined as doing an activity because of its inherent satisfactions. When intrinsically motivated the person experiences feelings of enjoyment, the exercise of their skills, personal accomplishment, and excitement [ 13 ]. To different degrees, recreational sport and exercise can certainly be performed for the associated enjoyment or for the challenge of participating in an activity. In contrast to intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation refers to doing an activity for instrumental reasons, or to obtain some outcome separable from the activity per se . For example, when a person engages in an activity to gain a tangible or social reward or to avoid disapproval, they are extrinsically motivated. SDT, however, conceptualizes qualitatively different types of extrinsic motivation, that themselves differ in terms of their relative autonomy. Some extrinsic motives are relatively heteronomous, representing what in SDT are described as controlled forms of motivation. For example, externally regulated behaviors are those performed to comply with externally administered reward and punishment contingencies. Also controlled are extrinsic motivations based on introjected regulation, where behavior is driven by self-approval. Controlled forms of extrinsic motivation are expected within SDT to sometimes regulate (or motivate) short-term behavior, but not to sustain maintenance over time [ 14 ]. Yet not all extrinsic motives are controlled. When a person does an activity not because it is inherently fun or satisfying (intrinsic motivation), but rather because it is of personal value and utility, it can represent a more autonomous form of behavioral regulation. Specifically in SDT , identified and integrated forms of behavioral regulation are defined as those in which one’s actions are self-endorsed because they are personally valued. Examples include exercising because one values its outcomes and desires to maintain good health [ 7 ]. Thus, in SDT, these different forms of motivation are conceptualized as lying along a continuum from non-autonomous to completely autonomous forms of behavioral regulation.

Third, SDT introduces the concept of basic psychological needs as central to understanding both the satisfactions and supports necessary for high quality, autonomous forms of motivation . Specifically SDT argues that there are basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, all of which are conceived as essential and universal nutriments to psychological health and the development of internal motivation. Satisfaction of these basic needs results in increased feelings of vitality and well-being [ 15 ]. Like any other activity, engaging in sports and exercise can be more or less conducive to having one’s psychological needs realized [ 16 ]. For example, experiences of competence vary upon success or failure at challenging physical tasks or as a function of feedback from, for example, a fitness professional. Perceptions of personal connection (relatedness) with others (e.g., fellow members of a fitness class or weight loss program) can vary greatly as a function of the interpersonal environment. Feelings of autonomy (versus feeling controlled) differ as a function of communication styles in exercise settings. According to SDT, in fact, need fulfillment in any context is closely associated with the characteristics of that social milieu, that is, whether important others support the needs for autonomy (e.g., take the perspective of the client/patient, support their choices, minimize pressure), relatedness (e.g., create an empathetic and positive environment, show unconditional regard), and competence (e.g., limit negative feedback, provide optimally challenging tasks). The concept of need support is thus thought to largely explain individual differences in the development and enactment of motivation across the lifespan [ 12 ]. Consequently, the design of health behavior change interventions that enhance satisfaction of participants’ basic needs is a matter of much interest in SDT studies, including in the area of exercise and physical activity [ 17 , 18 ].

More recently, goal contents have also been explored from an SDT perspective in relation to a range of behaviors, including exercise [e.g., [ 19 , 20 ]. It should be noted that most authors have referred to goal contents in exercise contexts as motives , or more specifically participation motives [e.g., [ 64 , 79 ]. Operationally both terms are identical and we will use them interchangeably herein. Whereas intrinsic motivation and the various forms of extrinsic motivation represent the regulatory processes underlying a behavior, motives or goal contents are the outcomes that individuals are pursuing by engaging in the behavior [ 12 ]. Goal contents are differentiated according to the extent to which their pursuit is likely to satisfy basic psychological needs. Specifically, SDT distinguishes intrinsic goals (e.g., seeking affiliation, personal growth, or health) as those thought to be more closely related to the fulfillment of basic psychological needs, from extrinsic goals (e.g., seeking power and influence, wealth, or social recognition) that are thought to be associated with “substitute needs” which are neither universal nor truly essential to well-being and personal development. Factor analytic studies have borne out this theoretical distinction, and a number of studies have shown the predicted differential consequences of intrinsic versus extrinsic goal importance [ 21 , 22 ]. Within the domain of exercise and physical activity, extrinsic goals (e.g., when exercise is performed primarily to improve appearance) or intrinsic goals (e.g., to challenge oneself or to improve/preserve health and well-being) can clearly be distinguished. It should be noted that different goals or motives towards a given activity often naturally co-exist in the same person, some being more intrinsic, some less. Similar to what occurs with motivational regulations (which can have more or less autonomous elements, see more below), it is the relative preponderance of certain types of motives versus others which is thought to determine more or less desirable outcomes [e.g., [ 19 , 20 ].

Finally, SDT also proposes that people have dispositional tendencies, named causality orientations [ 14 ] which describe the way they preferentially orient towards their environments, resulting in characteristic motivational and behavioral patterns. Although some people may be more inclined to seek out and follow their internal indicators of preference in choosing their course of action, others may more naturally tend to align with external directives and norms, while still others may reveal to be generally amotivated, more passive, and unresponsive to either internal or external events that could energize their actions [ 12 ]. Although this topic has not been explored at length in previous research, these orientations can manifest themselves (and be measured) in exercise and physical activity contexts and the Exercise Causality Orientation Scale has been developed to measure individual differences in orientations around exercise [ 9 ].

Previous review papers of the topic of SDT and physical activity have primarily focused on describing the rationale for the application of this particular theoretical framework to physical activity behaviors, reviewing illustrative studies [ 7 , 23 , 24 ]. Meanwhile, the SDT-related exercise empirical research base has grown considerably in recent years, warranting a more comprehensive and systematic review of empirical data. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of empirical studies provide the highest level of evidence for the appraisal and synthesis of findings from scientific studies. Accordingly, the present review includes 66 empirical studies published up to June 2011 that assessed relations between SDT-based constructs or interventions and exercise outcomes. We included experimental and cross-sectional studies that have measured exercise causality orientations, autonomy/need support and need satisfaction, exercise motives or goals, and exercise self-regulations and motivation. We also studied SDT-based interventions as predictors of exercise behavioral outcomes. Figure ​ Figure1 1 depicts a general model of SDT and exercise, where its major constructs and theoretical links are highlighted.

General SDT process model for exercise behavior. Adapted from the general health process model (Ref Ryan et al., Europ Health Psych, 2009), this graph includes the 5 groups of variables analyzed in this review as exercise predictors and their expected relationships (in a simplified version). Although this review only covers direct relationships between each class of variables (e.g., need satisfaction in exercise) and exercise behaviors, since few articles have simultaneously tested various steps of this model, the SDT model for exercise assumes that a sizable share of variance of exercise associated with SDT variables may be explained via indirect or mediating mechanisms, as depicted. See Discussion for more details.

Data sources and procedure

This review is limited to articles written in English and published in peer-reviewed journals covering adult samples. Research on autonomy and exercise in adolescents and children (typically based in school and physical education) was excluded, as well as studies with competitive athletic samples. Both are specific settings and were considered distinct from leisure-time or health-related exercise participation in adults, the focus of this review. The review includes both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, investigating clinical and/or general population samples, and using diverse quantitative methodological approaches. A systematic literature search of studies published between 1960 and June 2011 was undertaken on the computerized psychological and sport databases PsycINFO and SportDiscus. The following strategy was used: TX (autonomous motivation OR autonomous regulation OR intrinsic motivation OR controlled regulation OR autonomy OR self-determination OR treatment regulations OR goals OR motives OR basic needs OR autonomy-supportive climate) AND TX (physical activity OR exercise OR exercise behavior OR leisure-time physical activity) Limiters were: Scholarly (peer-reviewed) journals; English Language; Adulthood (> 18 yr); Specific subjects: exercise OR motivation OR self-determination. This search yielded 660 articles. Abstracts were read and, of those, all potentially relevant full manuscripts were retrieved (n = 73). At this stage, studies were excluded which did not include either SDT variables or physical activity variables (accounting for most of the excluded studies), that used non-adult samples, and that reported achievement/performance outcomes related to PE classes. Next, reference lists of retrieved articles, previous review articles on the topic, and books were also reviewed, and manual searches were conducted in the databases and journals for authors who regularly publish in this area. This search yielded 11 additional manuscripts, totaling 84 potentially relevant manuscripts. Next, manuscripts were read and the following inclusion criteria used to select the final set of manuscripts: inclusion of non-athletic samples; outcomes included exercise/physical activity behaviors; reported direct associations between self-determination variables and physical activity outcomes. A total of 66 studies fulfilled all inclusion criteria and thus were included in this review. Of these, ten were experimental, eleven prospective, forty-two cross-sectional, and three used mixed designs.

Studies were initially coded with a bibliography number, but independent samples ( K ) were considered as the unit of analysis in the current review since a few studies used the same sample while other studies reported analyses on multiple samples. Data tables (Table ​ (Table1) 1 ) were constructed and encompassed sample characteristics of study populations, motivational predictors of exercise behavior, instruments of assessment, exercise-related outcomes, research designs, and statistical methods used to test the associations.

Description of reviewed studies

Legend: F, female; M, male ; BIV, uni/bivariate associations; MV, multivariate associations; IM, intrinsic motivation; INTEG, integrated regulation; ID, identified regulation; INTR, introjected regulation; EXT, external regulation; AMOT, amotivation; RAI, relative autonomy index; AutMot, autonomous motivations; CtMot, controlled motivations; Autonomy O., autonomy orientation; Controlling O., controlling orientation; Impersonal O., impersonal orientation; (+), positive association; (-), negative association; (n.s.), not significant. Superscript letters are used to signal associations between specific predictors and outcomes (check the ‘significant predictors’ and ‘outcomes’ columns when applied). (*) is used when specific comments need to be made (check the ‘observations’ column on those cases).

Organization of SDT predictors

Studies were generally organized based on the self-determination theory process model, depicted in Figure ​ Figure1. 1 . The goal of the present manuscript was not to test this model per se , which would involve a considerably larger analysis. Instead, we focused exclusively on relations between each of these categories of variables and exercise outcomes (described below). Results concerning exercise self-regulations are listed first, followed by findings reporting the association between psychological needs satisfaction and exercise behavioral outcomes. Next, results concerning the measures of exercise motives/goals are reported, followed by findings regarding the association between perceived need support and exercise. Exercise causality orientation studies are listed last. In addition, we also identified interventions based on SDT and analyzed their effects on exercise outcomes.

Exercise-related outcomes

Exercise behavior was evaluated through self-reported measures (e.g., 7-day Physical Activity Recall (PAR) [ 25 ], Godin Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire (LTEQ) [ 26 ]) in a total of 55 independent samples (78%). Three studies (representing 4 original samples) used accelerometry or pedometry to measure physical activity (6%). Measures of stages of change for exercise participation were employed in 13 samples (18%). A few other indicators were also used in some cases (8%), namely exercise attendance, number of exercise relapses, and exercise dropout.

Data coding and analyses

Summary tables were created based on the analysis of the available data (Tables ​ (Tables2 2 and ​ and3). 3 ). Sample characteristics (i.e., sample size, age, gender) were summarized using a tallying system and resulted in total counts (see Table ​ Table2). 2 ). The percentage of independent samples presenting each characteristic from the total number of samples was also included. A summary of the evidence for each SDT-based construct was determined through a calculation of the percentage of independent samples supporting each association, based on whether the association was statistically significant or not (see Table ​ Table3). 3 ). In all studies, significance level was set at 0.05. The measures of association varied across the studies’ statistical methods, as indicated in the column “observations” in Table ​ Table1, 1 , including correlation and multiple regression coefficients, t -test or ANOVA group differences (e.g., between active and inactive groups), discriminant function coefficients, and structural equation model path coefficients, among others. Because many studies included bivariate associations (or direct paths in structural models) and also multivariate associations (in regression or in structural models), these were analyzed separately (see Table ​ Table2). 2 ). A sum code was built for each motivational construct based on the following classification system: Positive (++) for percentage K ≥75% and (+) for percentage K between 50-75% showing positive associations in both bivariate and multivariate tests; 0/+ or 0/- when the evidence was split between no association (0) and either positive or negative associations, respectively; and (?) for other results indicating inconsistent findings or indeterminate results due to a small number of studies available).

Summary of samples characteristics

Note: *Exercise relapses, weekly attendance, exercise adherence (home; clinical), exercise dropout.

Summary of associations between SDT predictors and exercise-related outcomes

Legend: Results derived from multivariate analyses and uni/bivariate analyses (in parenthesis) are presented. K , number of samples. Positive (++) was used for percentage K ≥75% and (+) for percentage K between 50-75% for both bivariate and multivariate associations; 0/+ or 0/- when the evidence was split between no association (0) and either positive or negative associations, respectively; (?) for other results indicating inconsistent findings or indeterminate results (i.e., when only a small number of studies were available, marked with *).

Characteristics of studies and samples

The 66 located studies comprised a total of 72 independent samples. The number of samples was higher than the total number of studies because some studies analyzed data originating from more than one sample (two samples: [ 27 ], [ 28 ], [ 29 ]; three samples: [ 30 ]; six samples: [ 31 ]). On the other hand, 7 studies were published using data from three original samples ([ 18 , 33 , 32 ]; [ 35 , 34 ]; [ 17 , 36 ]). A summary of the demographic characteristics of participants and samples is reported in Table ​ Table2. 2 . Samples tended to be mixed gender and included a range of populations (e.g., healthy individuals, chronic disease patients, overweight/obese individuals, exercisers), predominantly from Western cultures (97%), and mainly aged between 25–65 years-old.

From the studies eligible for this review, 53 ( K  = 57) analyzed associations between self-regulations and exercise behavioral outcomes, 17 studies ( K  = 17) investigated the relations between basic psychological needs and exercise, 12 studies ( K  = 15) tested the associations between motives and exercise, and 13 studies ( K  = 12) included measures of perceived need support and evaluated its predictive effect on exercise-related outcomes (see Table ​ Table3). 3 ). Seven intervention studies, corresponding to 6 actual interventions, were identified. It should be noted that relations reported in the intervention studies were also analyzed in the other sections (e.g., regulations, need support, etc.)

Motivational predictors of exercise-related outcomes

Exercise behavioral regulations. A total of 57 samples (53 studies) analyzed associations between regulations and exercise behavior. Of these, 37 were used in cross-sectional designs, 10 in prospective designs, 7 in experimental studies, and 2 in mixed designs. Regulations were assessed with different instruments (53% with the Behavioural Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire (BREQ) and with Markland and Tobin’s revised version (BREQ-2) [ 37 ] and reported results in several ways: Relative autonomy was evaluated as a composite score (e.g., the Relative Autonomy Index (RAI), by which individual regulations are weighted and summed to give an index of the extent to which a person’s behavior is more or less autonomously regulated) in 23% of the cases (none of which were experimental designs); autonomous and controlled regulations were grouped and analyzed as two higher-level types of regulation in 21% and 14% of the cases, respectively. All major forms of regulation were assessed and discriminated in 71% of the cases.

Nearly all studies using measures of relative autonomy (8 of 9  K ) reported positive associations with exercise behavior while studies investigating autonomous and controlled forms of regulation ( K =  11 and K =  5, respectively) also found consistent, positive associations favoring autonomous regulations as a predictor of exercise outcomes (82/91%, depending on whether bivariate or multivariate analysis is used). On the other hand, 3 independent samples (60%) showed negative associations in multivariate models for non self-determined regulations, all others (40%) showing no association. In bivariate analyses, results for controlled regulations unanimously showed no association. Results were similar across different study designs, suggesting consistent positive effects of autonomous regulations on exercise behavior, and either negative or null effects associated with controlled regulations. In one study with longer-term follow-up measurements, prospective associations between regulations and exercise behavior were reported [ 33 ] (see also Figure ​ Figure2). 2 ). The authors found that both 12 and 24-month autonomous regulations, but not controlled regulations, mediated the effects of a SDT-based intervention on self-reported exercise at 24 months [ 32 ].

Title. Self-reported minutes of moderate and vigorous exercise per week as a function of exercise autonomous motivation. Analysis includes 141 participants of the PESO trial [ 67 ] and data reports to variables assessed at 12 months (intervention end), 24 months (1 year follow-up with no contact) and 36 months (2-year follow-up). The time-point values in exercise and motivational variables at each assessment period were used (not change). Values used for tertile-split groups of autonomous motivation were calculated including all subjects (intervention and control groups collapsed), adjusting for experimental group membership. Autonomous motivation includes the identified regulation and intrinsic motivation subscales of the Exercise Self-Regulation Questionnaire [ 84 ]. Self-reported exercise was assessed with the 7-day Physical Activity Recall interview [ 25 ] and quantifies moderate and vigorous structured physical activity (METs > 3) performed in the previous week (or typical of the previous month if previous week was atypical, see reference 27 for more details). Panels B, D, and F show cross-sectional associations (variables assessed at the same time point) and panels A, C, and E show “prospective” associations (motivation assessed one year earlier than exercise). F for one-way ANOVA with letters in bar indicating multiple comparisons with Bonferroni post-hoc tests (different letters indicate different means, p < .05).

Specific results concerning the separate autonomous types of motivation showed positive associations between identified regulation and exercise behavior in 28 samples (74%) in multivariate analyses and 22 samples (85%) in bivariate analyses. The only exception was a study by Moreno et al. where the mean value for identified regulation was lower in a group reporting 60+ min of exercise than among those who exercised less than 60 min (presumably each day; no details are provided). Of note also are the mixed results found by Edmunds et al. (2007) displaying negative associations for identified regulations in a multilevel model, but positive cross-sectional associations at each of the 3 times points. The authors indicated that the multilevel results “should be ignored as they are a consequence of net suppression” [ 38 ]; pg.737]. In 3 studies that analyzed identified regulations [ 36 , 40 , 39 ], no significant association emerged. Regarding intrinsic motivation, positive associations with exercise behavior were reported in 23 or 22 independent samples (62% or 92%), in multivariate or bivariate analyses respectively. No study reported negative associations and results were consistent independent of study design. Few studies have tested the role of integrated regulation, but it appears to positively predict exercise behavior. Of 8 samples analyzed, 62-75% found positive associations with physical activity, with increased consistency found in bivariate analyses.

In an attempt to further clarify which single self-determined type of motivation is more closely related with behavior outcomes, a comparative analysis between identified and intrinsic motivation findings was undertaken. Twenty-five studies ( K =  31) reported significant associations for both variables, of which 12  K were derived from multivariate analysis, 5  K from correlational analysis, and 4  K from both types of analysis. Seven studies ( K =  7) found associations for identified regulation in multivariate analysis, but only bivariate associations for intrinsic motivation [ 44 , 45 , 43 , 42 , 41 ]. Three studies/samples showed the converse [ 48 , 47 , 33 ], reporting associations for intrinsic motivation in multivariate analysis and only correlational bivariate associations for identified regulation. It should be noted that no study tested whether the differences between the association coefficients (for identified regulation vs. intrinsic motivation) with exercise were significant. Wilson et al. (2002) investigated bivariate predictors of different physical activity intensities [ 49 ] and found that at mild intensities, associations were significant only for identified regulation; for moderately intense and strenuous exercise, both identified regulation and intrinsic motivation were significant predictors. Three additional studies/samples showed significant associations only for identified regulation [ 50 , 51 , 38 ]. In another study ( K =  1) this regulation was the only variable predicting fewer exercise relapses [ 52 ]. On the other hand, two studies found significant associations only for intrinsic motivation [ 54 , 53 ].

For integrated regulation, only 6 studies ( K  = 8) were available. Comparing results for integrated versus identified regulations no differences were found in the patterns of association for all but one study [ 85 ] where there was a significant bivariate association with exercise for integrated but not identified regulation. Comparing results between integrated regulation and intrinsic motivation, two studies show integrated regulation, but not intrinsic motivation, as a significant predictor of exercise in multivariate models [ 41 , 38 ] whereas in a different study the opposite trend was observed using bivariate associations [ 28 ].

All studies measuring stages of change for exercise participation ( K =  7) showed that autonomous regulations increased across stages, being the highest in the action/maintenance stages. However, only one study formally tested differences for regulations’ means across stages of change [ 52 ]. They found that for identified regulation there was a progressive increase from preparation to action to maintenance stage (ANOVA F = 25.1, p < 0.001) whereas for intrinsic motivation, maintenance had significantly higher means than both preparation and action stages (F = 27.5, p < 0.001). Five of these studies used the BREQ/BREQ-2 and 4 of these used discriminant function analysis. In these 4 studies, identified regulation loaded slightly stronger than intrinsic motivation on the primary discriminant functions distinguishing across stages of change. Authors tended to conclude that identified regulation played a more important role in exercise adherence when the full range of stages of change is considered. Finally, in a study examining change in behavioral regulations among exercise initiates, Rodgers et al. showed that both identified and intrinsic motivation increased overtime and that, compared to regular exercisers, initiates’ levels of identified and intrinsic motivations remained below regular exercisers’ levels even after 6 months of physical activity [ 31 ]. Authors also concluded that identified motivation appeared to increase faster than intrinsic motivation in these early stages of exercise adoption [ 31 ].

Results from multivariate analysis concerning the controlled types of motivation showed negative associations between external regulation and exercise behavior in 16 independent samples (43%). The remaining samples (57%) showed no associations. The trend for the absence of an association between external regulation and exercise was more apparent in bivariate analysis (77%). Regarding external regulation across stages of change, results show that external regulation generally decreases across stages, being higher in the preparation/action stages than in the maintenance stage. Furthermore, when comparing genders, results suggest that among males external regulation is negatively associated with exercise in the latter stages of change (i.e., maintenance) whereas among female there is no association at this stage.

Regarding introjected regulation, multivariate analysis showed positive associations with physical activity in 11 independent samples (30%), 1 study ( K = 2 ) found negative associations (5%) and all others showed no association (65%). Bivariate results pointed in a similar direction, but showed more positive associations (52%). Despite the positive associations with exercise behaviors, the strength of association for introjected regulation appears to be lower compared to self-determined types of motivation, as reported in several studies [e.g., [ 55 , 49 ]. A closer look into the way introjected regulation predicts exercise participation over time shows mixed findings. Rodgers et al. (2010) studied initiate exercisers and found significant, but small, increases in introjection overtime, noting that these changes occurred mainly in the early stages of exercise participation [ 31 ]. Increases in introjected regulation were also observed across stages of change in 5 of 7 independent samples, although these were only significant in one case [e.g., [ 52 ]. In contrast, Silva and colleagues showed that although introjected regulation was cross-sectionally associated with exercise at 12- and 24-month time points, 12-month regulation did not prospectively predict (nor did it mediate) 24-month exercise outcomes [ 33 , 32 ].

A possible gender effect might be relevant to understand these mixed findings regarding introjected regulations. In effect, a closer examination of all the studies that explored gender differences with respect to the association between exercise regulations and behavior suggests that introjected regulation may be more positively associated with exercise among females, whereas among males the association is negative or zero [e.g., [ 45 , 41 ]. Within the studies examining differences across stages, results suggest that introjection is relevant for both genders in the action stage, but that in the maintenance stage it is more relevant for women than for men [ 56 , 55 ]. It should be noted that only two studies reported associations for men: one showed a positive association in the action stage and negative in the maintenance stage [ 55 ] and another study showed a tendency towards a positive association in the action/maintenance stage [ 57 ]. For studies with mixed samples and not reporting gender differences (the majority) the associations are mixed. Experimental studies confirm this pattern of mixed results, some showing increases in introjected regulation over the course of an exercise program [e.g., [ 39 ] and some showing no significant changes [e.g., [ 58 ]. One notes that null or unreliable results from introjection are theoretically expected within SDT, in which introjection is seen as an unstable basis for motivation without positive long-term utility.

Regarding amotivation, 5 independent samples (36%) showed negative associations with exercise outcomes in multivariate analysis; the remaining studies ( K =  9) showed no associations. Correlational analysis showed negative associations in 9 samples (69%) and no association in 4 samples (31%).

Need satisfaction. A total of 17 samples/studies were used to analyze the associations between basic psychological needs and exercise behavior. Ten samples were evaluated in cross-sectional designs, 3 within prospective studies and 3 in experimental designs. One study used mixed methods (cross-sectional and prospective). Different instruments were used to assess basic needs, a fact that does not facilitate the comparison of results between studies. The Psychological Need Satisfaction for Exercise Scale [ 16 ] was adopted in 24% of the cases and was the most frequently used measure. Competence was assessed in 14 (82%) independent samples, autonomy in 11 (65%) samples, and relatedness in 9 (53%) independent samples. An examination of the specific multivariate results for each basic need showed that perceived competence was positively associated with physical activity in 56% of the independent samples, while the remaining samples showed no association (44%). The pattern of association was much clearer in correlational analysis with 12 samples (92%) reporting positive associations. Regarding autonomy need satisfaction, findings were mixed and generally ranged from no association (60% in multivariate analysis) to moderate positive or negative associations (20% for each). Nevertheless, positive correlations were reported in 5 studies/samples (50%) using bivariate analysis. Regarding relatedness, multivariate results consistently reported an absence of associations with exercise behavior ( K =  4, 100%). Correlations showed a similar pattern, even though a general trend towards a positive association with exercise behavior was identified (38%). No negative associations with exercise outcomes were observed for the perceived fulfillment of any of the 3 needs. A composite score was created to assess overall exercise psychological need satisfaction in 2 (of 17) samples; positive associations with exercise behavior were reported in both cases.

Exercise motives. A total of 12 studies ( K =  15) investigated the associations between motives (or goal contents) and exercise behavior. Of these studies, 8 were cross-sectional, 3 prospective, and 1 used a mixed design (cross-sectional and experimental). Regarding the instruments used to measure exercise motives, there is some inconsistency: the Motives for Physical Activity Measure (MPAM) or MPAM revised/adapted versions [ 59 , 27 ] of it were used in 6 independent samples (40%), 3 samples (20%) measured exercise motives using the Exercise Motivations Inventory - 2 (EMI-2) [ 60 ], and in other 3 samples (20%) the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) [ 61 ] was employed to evaluate intrinsic motives and the Extrinsic Motivation Inventory (Lee’s EMI) [ 62 ] to measure extrinsic motives. Sebire and colleagues (2009) [ 19 ] used the recently developed Goal Content for Exercise Questionnaire [ 63 ] while Segar and colleagues used an inductive, qualitative method to assess exercise motives in one study [ 64 ], and performed a cluster analysis to identify homogeneous groups of goals, intrinsic and extrinsic, in another study [ 65 ].

Multivariate results showed that intrinsic motives (e.g., challenge, affiliation, enjoyment) were positively associated with exercise behavior in all samples ( K =  8, 100%). A similar trend was observed in correlations (75%). Regarding body-related motives, multivariate findings were mixed regardless of the statistical analysis performed: in multivariate analysis, 25% of the samples showed positive associations and 25% reported negative associations; in correlational analysis, a general trend towards a positive association was identified (63%). The pattern of association was less clear for health/fitness motives with 33% showing positive associations, 33% showing negative associations, and other 33% not finding any association. There was only one study/sample performing correlational analysis to explore the links between health motives and exercise [ 46 ]; positive associations were reported. As expected from theory, controlled motives (social recognition, appearance/weight) did not predict, or negatively predicted, exercise participation [ 46 ].

Perceived need support. Environments perceived as more need-supportive were positively associated with increased levels of self-reported physical activity in 3 (of 6) independent samples tested with multivariate analysis (50%). This increased to 73% ( K =  8) in correlational analysis. The remaining studies/samples showed no association. In the majority (67%) of independent samples perceived need support was assessed using the Health Care Climate Questionnaire [ 66 ].

SDT-based Interventions. To date, only a few interventions have been designed to promote exercise-related behaviors by specifically increasing personal autonomy in the form of exercise autonomous self-regulation in adults [e.g., [ 17 , 40 , 68 , 39 , 67 , 69 ]. Some of these trials are still ongoing and all have been conducted in Western cultures. Of 7 interventions (with available data), 6 (86%) found significant differences favoring the SDT-based intervention group for perceived autonomy support, need satisfaction, and autonomous and introjected regulations for exercise, as well as greater self-reported exercise. In addition, one of these interventions found gender differences, reporting significant increases in perceived autonomy support and self-reported exercise only for women [ 40 ]. In contrast, there was one study in a clinical setting that did not find significant differences in perceived autonomy support and exercise behavior between autonomy support group and controls [ 68 ]. The authors argued that their additional individual SDT-based 4-week intervention, added to standard cardiac rehabilitation, might have been too limited (i.e., an insufficient number of sessions) to achieve significant between-group differences.

Edmunds and colleagues tested a SDT-based intervention in an exercise setting, examining the effect of an autonomy-supportive teaching style on female exercisers’ psychological needs, motivational regulations, and exercise behaviors during a 10-wk exercise program [ 39 ]. They found that the intervention increased autonomous self-regulation, need satisfaction, and attendance [ 39 ]. Although not a randomized controlled trial, results were similar to those obtained in several RCTs. For instance, Fortier et al. [ 17 ] tested an autonomy-promoting counseling protocol for promoting physical activity in sedentary primary care patients in a 13-week RCT. Results showed that the intervention was successful in changing autonomous self-regulation to reach activity goals (vs. a brief counseling protocol) and that higher autonomous regulation for exercise mid-intervention predicted higher levels of physical activity at the end of the intervention in the intervention group. The longest RCT to date to evaluate autonomy support, need satisfaction, motivation, and exercise behaviors was implemented in 239 overweight women, through 30 weekly group sessions for about 1 year, with a 2-year follow-up [ 67 ]. A few features of this study clearly distinguish it from the remaining intervention studies reviewed (see Table ​ Table2, 2 , table VI): larger sample, considerably longer intervention and follow-up assessments up to 3 years, and the use of mediation analysis to predict long-term changes in physical activity. Results showed that the intervention was perceived as need-supportive, it increased perceptions of competence and autonomy for exercise, increased autonomous regulations (and to a lesser degree introjected regulation, but not external regulation), and increased exercise behavior [ 18 ]. Exercise level was clearly associated with level of autonomous motivation for all subjects, both concurrently and prospectively, as depicted in Figure ​ Figure2. 2 . Only autonomous regulations were found to mediate the intervention effect on exercise in the long-term [ 33 , 32 ].

The aim of this review was to examine the empirical literature on the relations between SDT-based constructs and exercise and physical activity. The review demonstrates the recent growth in the application of this theory to the study of exercise and physical activity motivation, with 53 of the 66 papers identified being published in the last five years. The theory has been applied to a wide range of physical activity contexts including recreational exercise, weight loss programs and clinical populations, and across a range of ages. The majority of studies employed cross-sectional designs but comparable results are found across cross-sectional, prospective, and experimental designs.

Behavioral regulation and exercise

The vast majority of studies included an examination of the relations between behavioral regulation and exercise behavior. Of these, most included some or all of the individual regulations specified within SDT whereas others have collapsed autonomous and controlled forms of regulation into summary scales or adopted the RAI. The results show consistent support for a positive relation between more autonomous forms of motivation and exercise behavior, whether single regulation, summary measures, or the RAI are used. Intervention studies are also clearly supportive as are studies examining the endorsement of different forms of behavioral regulation across the stages of change, consistently showing that more self-determined regulations distinguish between individuals in the later stages from those in the early stages.

When considering the more autonomous forms of behavioral regulation separately, positive associations for identified regulation are found slightly more consistently in comparison to intrinsic motivation in multivariate analyses, whereas intrinsic motivation is somewhat more consistently predictive of exercise behavior in bivariate analyses. A similar trend was found for integrated regulation versus intrinsic motivation, but based on much fewer studies. This could be interpreted as suggesting that, independent of other regulatory motives, identified regulation (or integrated regulation) is the single best correlate of exercise. This notwithstanding, the SDT continuum of motivation [ 10 ] suggests that regulations that are more closely located in the continuum of autonomy specified by SDT (such as identified and integrated regulation, and intrinsic motivation) are expected to share some degree of variance, highlighting the theoretical expectation that regulatory factors are often simultaneously operative. This renders the question of which sub-type of autonomous motivation is more important in explaining and promoting exercise behaviors difficult to solve. Nonetheless, a number of authors have discussed this issue, attempting to explain results “favoring” either identified or intrinsic motivation. For example, Mullan et al. [ 57 ] argued that intrinsic motivation alone is unlikely to sustain long-term regular engagement in exercise, given all the organization and commitment it entails. Edmunds et al. [ 44 ] suggested that because sustaining a physically active lifestyle presumably requires a high degree of effort, often for mundane or repetitive activities, regulation by identification with the outcomes may be more important than exercising for fun and enjoyment, or to challenge oneself. Finally, Koestner and Losier (2002) proposed that in behavioral domains that require engagement in a range of different activities that vary in their intrinsic appeal, internalization of the value of the outcomes of the activities is likely to lead to greater persistence than being intrinsically motivated [ 70 ]. Clearly exercise is one such behavioral domain.

Because health promotion campaigns typically market exercise more in terms of health-related outcomes than in terms of its intrinsic value, the primary source of self-determined motivation among active individuals might derive from a valuing of these outcomes, even if they also find exercise intrinsically enjoyable [ 55 ]. Conversely, in contexts where enjoyment in and genuine interest for exercise is emphasized over the outcomes, one might expect intrinsic motivation to be more salient to individuals. In support of this, in Silva et al.’s intervention that explicitly emphasized enjoyment, mastery and challenge rather than the outcomes of exercise, intrinsic motivation was a more consistent predictor than identified regulation of moderate and vigorous exercise [ 33 ]. Clearer definitions of the nature of the exercise behaviors under investigation (type, intensity, volume, duration, time in the same activity), which may vary within and among studies, and their potential appeal to the individual may shed additional light onto this issue. Some types of physical activity may be inherently intrinsically motivating for many individuals, especially when they involve self-chosen optimal challenges that can help people enjoy the sense of autonomy and mastery, factors that underpin intrinsic motivation.

As Daley and Duda [ 55 ] point out, most of the research showing a stronger effect for identified regulation has been cross-sectional and a few studies, including experimental studies lasting for several years, have shown intrinsic motivation to be critical for longer-term engagement [ 44 , 32 ]. Furthermore, a major limitation in interpreting findings concerning a benefit for either identified regulation or intrinsic motivation is that where associations for both have been found, authors have not conducted statistical tests to determine the unique effects of each type of regulation, nor whether the larger effect is in fact statistically significant. Given also the lack of longitudinal or experimental studies to determine whether differential benefits for the two types of regulation might emerge over time, it would be advisable for the time being to recommend fostering both identification and intrinsic motivation in order to promote optimal behavioral outcomes. Both of these autonomous forms of motivation share common antecedents in terms of support for autonomy and competence. Identification could be specifically promoted by emphasizing the personal instrumental value of exercising with regard to health, optimal functioning, and quality of life. At the same time, intrinsic motivation could be promoted by emphasizing fun, skill improvement, personal accomplishment, and excitement while exercising. Furthermore, the focus should be not only on the amount of exercise performed, or long-term adherence per se , but also on the enhanced well-being and vitality associated with exercise. Indeed, intrinsic motivation has been shown to be not only related to persistence at a task but also with psychological health and improved well-being [ 15 ].

The results for more controlled forms of regulation are mixed. No studies have found a positive association for controlled motivation at the summary level of analysis, nor for external regulation at the individual regulation level. However, while a substantial number of studies found a negative association, the majority found no association. There is a trend for external regulation to be negatively associated with exercise in the later stages of change among males, but no association among females, suggesting that more active males might respond more negatively to social pressures to exercise.

Concerning introjected regulation specifically, results are split between positive and null relations with exercise, with a clear predominance of the latter in multivariate analyses. This internally controlling form of regulation is generally theorized to be associated with more maladaptive outcomes such as negative affect, feelings of guilt, and lowered self-esteem [ 12 ]. People who feel internally pressured to exercise are likely to experience some degree of guilt or shame if they do not exercise, and the potential to enjoy it and experience the positive well-being consequences of this behavior will be decreased. Furthermore, research examining the motivating forces behind exercise dependence, which is considered to be maladaptive, has found introjected regulation to be the strongest predictor of this type of dependence [ 51 ]. Nonetheless, the periodic finding of a positive relation between introjection and adaptive behavioral outcomes in both exercise and other behavioral domains has been attributed to the partial internalization of external pressures from, for example, health promotion messages [ 52 ] or parental expectations [ 71 ].

When energized primarily by introjected motives, exercise participation may occur at some cost to psychological health, a factor most exercise adherence studies have not quantified. By contrast, recent evidence in overweight women showed that a summary measure of controlled exercise regulation (including introjected and external regulation items) was unrelated to psychological well-being, although controlled motivation to participate in obesity treatment predicted lower quality of life and self-esteem, and higher state anxiety [ 72 ]. A more refined analysis of introjected forms of motivation, breaking it into an approach-orientated motivation (to seek positive feelings such as self-aggrandizement and pride) and an avoidance-oriented motivation (to avoid negative feelings such as shame, guilt, and anxiety) could help clarify the role of introjected regulation on psychological and possibly also on behavioral outcomes [ 20 ]. Introjected avoidance regulation has been shown to yield more negative psychological correlates, including less engagement in school or poorer sports performance than introjected approach regulation [ 73 ]. The former was also more strongly associated with identified regulation than the latter. To our knowledge, studies have not yet addressed the differential association of these subtypes of introjected regulation with exercise behavior adoption or persistence.

The studies reviewed here also show a trend for an increase in introjection over time in the longitudinal or experimental studies, or across stages of change. However, observed (or assumed) increases in introjection with time do not necessarily mean that this variable explains or mediates increases in exercise. For instance, introjection has been found to be significantly associated with exercise when both were measured at the same time point, but not prospectively [ 32 ], suggesting that regulation by introjection may not lead to sustained exercise behavior. Furthermore, and despite observed increases in introjected regulation as a result of an SDT-based intervention [ 18 ], only autonomous motivation was predictive of long-term moderate and vigorous exercise in mediation analysis [ 32 ]. Unfortunately, there is only one study [ 32 ] reporting such long-term prospective associations between experimentally-induced changes in motivation and exercise behavior.

Our analysis of the relation between introjection and exercise for those studies reporting associations separately for males and females provides some evidence for a gender effect. Where such effects occur, introjection appears to be more positively associated with exercise among women, whereas among men there is a negative association or no association, especially in the maintenance stage of change. Some studies also report no differences. Given the pervasive societal and media pressures on women to have a slim and toned physique [ 74 ], this is perhaps not surprising. In the majority of studies, gender differences are not reported, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions but the trends we observe here for both introjection and external regulation suggest that future research would do well to consider possible gender differences rather than assuming no such differences and collapsing data across gender.

Finally, with regard to behavioral regulations and exercise, unsurprisingly no studies found a positive association between amotivation and exercise. The remaining studies showed either a predominance of null findings (nearly 70% in multivariate analyses) or negative associations (64% in bivariate analyses). Closer examination of these studies shows a trend for a sample effect. In all five studies showing no association the samples comprised either non-exercisers or a mixture of non-exercisers and exercisers, while the majority of studies showing negative associations comprised regular exercisers. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that fewer studies have assessed amotivation in comparison to those assessing the other regulations. This is understandable given that amotivation refers to the absence of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and represents a complete lack of self-determination and volition with respect to the target behavior [ 12 ]. Therefore one would expect to rarely see highly amotivated individuals in exercise settings. Additionally, different authors have put forth the hypothesis that individuals could also be autonomously motivated to not participate in exercise upon consideration, perhaps even when they can perceive some value in the behavior [ 7 , 20 ]. In some respect, they would be “autonomously amotivated” towards exercising. To the extent this would occur, it might also confound the association between amotivation and exercise, since these individuals might not score high on typical amotivation items such as “I don’t see the point in exercising” and “I think that exercising is a waste of time”, despite behind sedentary. It should also be noted that, empirically, it is difficult to distinguish amotivation from a lack of controlled or autonomous regulation [ 46 ]. Hence, including amotivation along with controlled and autonomous regulation in the same model might introduce a confound and could help explain the absence of associations in multivariate analyses.

Need satisfaction and exercise

Rather less attention has been paid to examining the associations between satisfaction of psychological needs and exercise than for behavioral regulations. The use of different instruments to assess basic need satisfaction (both domain-general and domain-specific measures), differences in the number of needs assessed, and their combined or separate analyses do not facilitate easy comparison of results across studies. Generally, competence satisfaction has been the most frequently assessed need and the literature shows consistent support for a positive association with exercise. In this review, twice as many studies reported bivariate associations between need satisfaction and exercise, compared to multivariate analyses. In bivariate analyses, no studies report a negative association between autonomy and exercise and the remaining results are split equally between positive and null associations whereas multivariate results are more mixed. Results for relatedness satisfaction are also mixed in bivariate analyses, although again no studies found a negative association with exercise. The exercise context might explain a lack of association for relatedness satisfaction. In some contexts, engaging in solitary exercise being the most obvious, the need for relatedness might simply not be an issue. Inconsistency in the measures used to assess the needs, and therefore their operational definitions, and a lack of applicability of particular scales to different exercise contexts might be concealing positive associations for autonomy.

In interpreting the results for need satisfaction and exercise, it is important to note that only direct effects of need satisfaction on exercise (whether from bivariate or multivariate association or direct paths in structural models) were considered in the present review, a fact that does not consider their indirect effects. In fact, theorizing within SDT stresses that the internalization of behavioral regulations is fostered by the satisfaction of basic psychological needs, and thus autonomous regulations would mediate associations between need satisfaction and behavioral outcomes. In current interpretations of mediation analysis, a significant association between an independent and a dependent variable is not a necessary condition for the possible occurrence of significant indirect (i.e., mediated) effects between them [ 75 ]. This highlights the importance of conducting more sophisticated analyses, such as path analysis or structural equation modeling, to clarify the mediating role of need satisfaction in the development of self-determined motivation. Indeed, going beyond the simple direct associations between behavioral regulations or need satisfaction and exercise (which are the main focus of this review), it is important to note that several studies have tested one or more parts of SDT’s proposed motivational sequence(s) for physical activity behaviors (see Figure ​ Figure1). 1 ). Relations from perceived autonomy support to exercise behavior, via psychological needs and regulatory styles have been tested (in part or all) in several studies and in general these confirm the proposed sequences [ 17 , 44 , 43 , 77 , 76 , 38 , 33 ]. In one case this was tested with a longitudinal randomized controlled trial using structural equation modeling [ 33 , 32 ], which empirically supported the motivational sequence proposed by SDT (i.e., need-supportive health care climate - > need satisfaction - > autonomous exercise regulation - > exercise behaviors).

Participation motives and exercise

Following some early work in the 1990s, there has been a resurgence of research in recent years on the role of exercise participation motives or goal contents. The rationale for this is that some motives (e.g., affiliation, skill development) are more intrinsically-oriented and likely to be experienced as autonomous whereas others (e.g., body-related motives such as weight or appearance management) are more extrinsic and likely to be experienced as internally controlling. Studies show a consistent positive association between more intrinsic motives and exercise. Findings for fitness/health and body-related motives are mixed. For fitness/health, although no studies found a negative association, an absence of association is more frequently found than positive associations. This might reflect different ways in which fitness/health motives have been operationalized. Health/fitness motives can reflect health pressures or threats (e.g., medical advice) or be associated with drives for thinness or an attractive image. Yet health and fitness motives can also reflect more positive concerns such as general health promotion, increasing physical strength for performing daily activities, reducing pain (e.g. lower back pain or discomfort in joints), or feeling more energy and vitality. Thus, conceptually, being concerned about health or fitness per se cannot be easily defined as either intrinsic or extrinsic, as it depends on what the motive means to the individual [ 78 ].

Similarly, results for body-related motives results are also mixed, despite a preponderance of both positive and null findings, relative to negative associations. For a more in-depth understanding of the relation between participation motives and exercise, the characteristics of exercise participation (e.g. type, intensity, total volume) and type of sample need to be taken into account. For example, Frederick and Ryan (1993) compared individuals whose primary physical activity was a sport with individuals whose primary physical activity was a non-sport fitness activity [ 59 ]. The sport participants had higher interest/enjoyment and competence motives whereas the fitness participants had higher body-related motives. Furthermore, the apparent positive (at least in the short term) role of these motives on exercise may then be mediated by the development of introjected regulation. Ingledew et al. [ 79 , 46 ] found that body related motives were associated with introjections and a recent study [ 41 ] found that introjected regulation predicted exercise intensity among females.

It is important to note, as Markland and Ingledew pointed out [ 46 ], that holding controlled motivations is not necessarily problematic, motivationally speaking, as long as self-determined regulations are also held. It has been suggested [ 20 ], for example, that a person may strive for a physically appealing body (an “extrinsic” motive) because her partner praises her good looks (controlled motivation) and at the same time she may personally value a fit appearance (autonomous motivation). Thus, although intrinsic goals tend to be pursued for autonomous reasons and extrinsic goals tend to be pursued for controlled reasons [ 81 ], the content of, and reasons for pursuing aspirations can be empirically crossed. Therefore, exercise promotion programs should take care not to explicitly or implicitly denigrate appearance/weight motive or any other motive for exercising, which may lead individuals to perceive that their autonomy is threatened, with consequent defiance and dropout [ 46 ]. Instead, acknowledging the validity of individuals’ motives in a need-supportive context may ultimately promote movement away from controlled regulations toward more autonomous commitments to be active.

Experimental studies

It is encouraging to see that in more recent years researchers have turned their attention to experimental studies evaluating interventions based on SDT principles. However, all but one were shorter than 3 months in duration and involved a small amount of contact time with the participants, in some cases amounting to approximately 2–3 in-person sessions. The remaining contacts were performed via telephone [e.g., [ 17 , 68 , 69 ], and one of these interventions relied solely on email booster messages to promote self-determined motivation and behavior change [ 40 ]. By contrast, one intervention provided substantially more contact time, (thirty 2-hour group sessions for about 1 year [ 18 , 67 ]). Not surprisingly, intensity, depth, and strategies used to promote personal autonomy and the development of intrinsic motivation for exercise also varied among these interventions. Some interventions were limited to strategies such as encouraging participants to make their own choices, providing information, setting realistic goals, and/or encouraging participants to seek and find forms of social support [e.g., [ 17 , 40 ]. Others included a more comprehensive set of strategies, more fully embracing SDT propositions [ 18 , 39 , 67 ] including providing a clear rationale for behavior change, acknowledging ambivalence and internal conflict, providing a menu of options, minimizing controlling influences (e.g., use of pressure, demands, and extrinsic rewards), and promoting competence through optimal challenge and giving informative feedback [ 18 , 33 , 32 ]. In sum, existing interventions are limited in number and highly varied. Longer and more comprehensive longitudinal interventions are needed, especially those which work toward the development of autonomous motivation, allow more time for changes in motivational and behavioral processes to take place, and assess whether those changes (and associations) persist in the long-term.

Conclusions

Overall, this review provides good evidence for the value of SDT in understanding and promoting exercise behavior. The clearest finding of this review concerns the beneficial role of developing autonomous self-regulation, be it predominantly via autonomous forms of extrinsic regulation (i.e., identified and integrated regulation) or enhanced intrinsic motivation. The present literature is consistent in showing that all forms of autonomous regulation predict exercise participation across a range of samples and settings. There is also increasing evidence that a motivational profile marked by high autonomous motivation is important to sustain exercise behaviors over time, although the pool of studies supporting this inference is limited. Longer-term studies and follow-ups will be especially important in evaluating the relative efficacy of identified versus intrinsic regulations in exercise maintenance. For the moment, evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that reporting well-internalized extrinsic regulations, such as personally valuing certain outcomes of exercise, is a particularly important factor for initial adoption (when cognitive factors such as rationally weighing pros and cons may be decisive but experiential knowledge of exercise may be limited). Conversely, there is some indication that a predominance of intrinsic motivation (i.e., valuing the actual experience of exercise) is especially important for longer-term exercise participation. It is also important to highlight the strong co-variance between identified/integrated regulations and intrinsic motivation, especially since these different forms of autonomous motivation share some common antecedents that would be applied in intervention settings.

We suspect future studies may come to identify significant moderating factors for the role of specific regulations on exercise adherence, such as age, gender, previous health conditions, or social norms and social desirability. For instance, current public campaigns against obesity may have enhanced the perceived utility of exercise for weight control and health (as a preventive or treatment “medicine”), inadvertently minimizing experiential rewards of exercise such as social interaction, expression of personal skills and abilities, self-development, or pure enjoyment. The experiential qualities of exercise were highlighted as a critical factor for adherence in a recent review of mediators of physical activity behavior change [ 82 ]. On this note, it is perhaps no coincidence that in the current public health dialogue about “exercise as medicine”, physical activities not typically associated with the term “exercise” such as playing sports, dancing, or outdoor exploration activities are rarely mentioned. From a public health/exercise promotion perspective, this could be a limiting factor if such activities, rich in their intrinsic appeal although less likely to be monitored and supervised, are not considered viable options in professionals’ exercise prescriptions or as targets of public policy promotions. Again, future research with long-term outcomes and also exploring predictors of different forms of exercise should help elucidate these issues.

Two additional conclusions can be derived from the present review. One is that having more intrinsic participation motives or goals associated with exercise, such as affiliation and social engagement, challenge, and skill development, is clearly associated with greater exercise participation. Since these motives are associated with intrinsic motivation [ 22 , 34 ], it may be especially important that health professionals are trained in distinguishing the “signs” of intrinsic (vs. extrinsic) motives in their patients and promoting them at every opportunity, aiming at long-term exercise maintenance. The other is that reporting increased perceived competence for exercise is also positively predictive of more adaptive exercise behavioral outcomes. Together, the previous findings have important implications for practice. It serves as evidence-based support for health professionals to strive not only to provide sufficient structure and optimal challenge to promote feelings of mastery and competence in their clients and patients, but also to encourage professionals to actively explore with the people they counsel reasons to be physically active that go beyond the most common motives such as improved body shape and attractiveness. Finally, as we discussed previously, the consequences of health and fitness-related motives, including weight loss, are perhaps more complex and likely moderated by other motivational aspects.

Limitations in the collective body of work are worthy of consideration as they bear on avenues for future research. A major limitation concerns the heterogeneity of the samples in the majority of studies. Heterogeneity within samples with regard to such factors as age, gender, weight or body composition, and fitness status may be contributing to variability across studies. While general motivational patterns are likely to remain constant (e.g., autonomous motivation being more likely to promote long-term exercise adherence), there may be much to learn by examining motivational profiles that are specific to different demographic groups or to individuals at different stages of change for exercise. For instance, a recent study [ 63 ] highlights the existence of different patterns of motivation between long-term exercisers versus beginners. Similarly, more enduring individual differences could be explored. Only one study has examined the relations between exercise causality orientations and exercise, and none have explored general causality orientations, despite the fact that such individual difference measures have been shown to predict adaptive outcomes in other health-related contexts [e.g., [ 108 ]. Finally, SDT has a history of strong experimental work on motivational factors but experimental work in the exercise domain itself could be expanded to better examine the causal mechanisms and process aspects of motivation for physical activity. Cross-sectional research is now abundant, and generally supportive, but it needs to be complemented with more applied intervention and translational studies that adequately model, implement, and evaluate key hypotheses about why and how individuals adopt and sustain more physically active lifestyles.

The methodology used in this review may also limit its conclusions. First, unpublished studies, evidence from grey literature, and data from non-English publications were not included. Although this is a frequent occurrence in scientific systematic review papers, it may provide an incomplete account of all studies in this area. Second, the way in which results from each study were classified and quantified (see Table ​ Table3) 3 ) is somewhat arbitrary and subject to criticism and various interpretations. Third, as stated before, the decision to only evaluate direct paths is also inherently limiting considering that the distal effects of some variables on behavior is thought to be mediated by other intermediate variables. Unfortunately, few studies are available to assess these more complete causal paths. Finally, our definition of “behavioral variable” to describe the outcome of choice, lumping together self-report and direct measures of behavior, and also attendance and stages of change is clearly not without reproach. Although we felt this was the best decision considering the relative paucity of studies for various measures, future studies might want to be more specific and/or selective in their outcomes of choice.

In sum, it is clear that the exercise domain has provided fertile ground for testing SDT’s precepts. While testing and developing theory is a worthwhile activity in its own right, the real significance of SDT will be realized if it can be employed to actually make a positive difference in peoples’ lives. In this regard, the growing evidence for the utility of SDT-based interventions for promoting the adoption and maintenance of exercise is a significant advance. Future studies would do well to include biological markers of successful exercise-related outcomes such as increased fitness and reductions in disease risk factors. Similarly, studies that include markers of psychological well-being and mental health, such as self-esteem, vitality, and symptoms of anxiety and depression symptomatology would also be useful, given that according to SDT only autonomously regulated behaviors can translate into enhanced psychological wellness. Extending SDT´s applicability beyond behavioral engagement in exercise to actual improvements in health and well-being would thus be another important step for SDT research to influence health care policy and delivery.

a Exercise outcomes covered in this review include what is normally termed “exercise” (purposeful and formalized leisure-time physical activity, often with the goal of improving fitness or health) but also, in a few cases, less structured forms of exercise (e.g., walking minutes), energy expenditure measures, and accelerometry data (which cannot distinguish between different forms of activity). Although the term “physical activity” would aptly cover the entire range of outcomes in this review, “exercise” is a more specific term to what the large majority of studies measured, with the use of instruments such as the Godin Leisure Time Exercise Questionnaires (LTEQ, used in 55 independent samples [77.5%]). For this reason, we will use the two terms indiscriminately in this review.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Authors’ contributions

PJT conceived this manuscript and led the writing team. EVC conducted the study search, summarized the quantitative review, and drafted the Results section. DM made substantial contributions to the Discussion section. DM, RMR, EVC, and MNS revised the entire manuscript and made important contributions in various sections. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Importance of Exercise Essay

500 words essay on exercise essay.

Exercise is basically any physical activity that we perform on a repetitive basis for relaxing our body and taking away all the mental stress. It is important to do regular exercise. When you do this on a daily basis, you become fit both physically and mentally. Moreover, not exercising daily can make a person susceptible to different diseases. Thus, just like eating food daily, we must also exercise daily. The importance of exercise essay will throw more light on it.

Importance of Exercise

Exercising is most essential for proper health and fitness. Moreover, it is essential for every sphere of life. Especially today’s youth need to exercise more than ever. It is because the junk food they consume every day can hamper their quality of life.

If you are not healthy, you cannot lead a happy life and won’t be able to contribute to the expansion of society. Thus, one needs to exercise to beat all these problems. But, it is not just about the youth but also about every member of the society.

These days, physical activities take places in colleges more than often. The professionals are called to the campus for organizing physical exercises. Thus, it is a great opportunity for everyone who wishes to do it.

Just like exercise is important for college kids, it is also essential for office workers. The desk job requires the person to sit at the desk for long hours without breaks. This gives rise to a very unhealthy lifestyle.

They get a limited amount of exercise as they just sit all day then come back home and sleep. Therefore, it is essential to exercise to adopt a healthy lifestyle that can also prevent any damaging diseases .

Benefits of Exercise

Exercise has a lot of benefits in today’s world. First of all, it helps in maintaining your weight. Moreover, it also helps you reduce weight if you are overweight. It is because you burn calories when you exercise.

Further, it helps in developing your muscles. Thus, the rate of your body will increases which helps to burn calories. Moreover, it also helps in improving the oxygen level and blood flow of the body.

When you exercise daily, your brain cells will release frequently. This helps in producing cells in the hippocampus. Moreover, it is the part of the brain which helps to learn and control memory.

The concentration level in your body will improve which will ultimately lower the danger of disease like Alzheimer’s. In addition, you can also reduce the strain on your heart through exercise. Finally, it controls the blood sugar levels of your body so it helps to prevent or delay diabetes.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of Importance of Exercise Essay

In order to live life healthily, it is essential to exercise for mental and physical development. Thus, exercise is important for the overall growth of a person. It is essential to maintain a balance between work, rest and activities. So, make sure to exercise daily.

FAQ of Importance of Exercise Essay

Question 1: What is the importance of exercise?

Answer 1: Exercise helps people lose weight and lower the risk of some diseases. When you exercise daily, you lower the risk of developing some diseases like obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and more. It also helps to keep your body at a healthy weight.

Question 2: Why is exercising important for students?

Answer 2: Exercising is important for students because it helps students to enhance their cardiorespiratory fitness and build strong bones and muscles. In addition, it also controls weight and reduces the symptoms of anxiety and depression. Further, it can also reduce the risk of health conditions like heart diseases and more.

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152 Fitness Essay Topics to Write about & Examples

Looking for the most popular fitness topics to write about? Find them here! This list contains only the best essay questions about physical fitness, topic ideas for presentation, trending gym essay topics, and research titles. Check them out below!

🔝 Top 10 Fitness Topics to Write About

🏆 best fitness topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on fitness, 💡 interesting topics to write about fitness, ❓ essay questions about physical fitness, 🔥 popular gym essay topics to write about, ✅ health and fitness topics to write about.

• Evaluation of Popular Workouts
• Best Fitness Apps and Wearable Devices
• How to Create a Personalized Fitness Plan
• How Physical Activity Can Reduce Stress
• The Role of Nutrition in Achieving Fitness
• How Social Media Influences Fitness Culture
• Benefits of Regular Exercise on Mental Health
• How to Maintain Fitness and Mobility in Later Life
• Strength Training and Its Importance for Overall Fitness
• What Is the Link Between Fitness and Productivity?
• Importance of Physical Fitness Although swimming might fall under the banner of sports, most people swim to relax in the water and have a good time, and can exercise their body at the same time.
• Externalities Environment and Analysis for Australian Fitness Industry In addition, the report also analyses the main forces that determine the attractiveness of a fitness industry or otherwise the industrial economic perspective of the fitness industry.
• Strategic Management in Bally Total Fitness These were like friends’ opinions and recommendation, the nature of the place regarding the cleanliness standards, nature and friendliness of the staff, the consistent persuasiveness of marketers and sales pitches, and the convenience and location […]
• Business Plan of ABC Fitness Center In the content of advertise, the ABC center will highlight the positive sites, emphasis on the importance of fitness center in public health, environment of this center, and the advantages of the membership.
• Business Plan – Fitness Center The aim of this business is to curb the burgeoning problem of a sedentary lifestyle in Saudi Arabia. Close to 30% of the population fall within the criteria, the fitness center is interested in.
• Fitness Trends: Group Exercising Provides Better Results Physical exercise is essential for the well being of the individual. The benefits of exercise are more comprehensive than simply physical gains.
• Physical Fitness in Aviation Aviation is an aspect that highly depends on the judgment of the people on the crew and the pilot for any outcome therefore, necessitating the importance of one to be careful with the health state […]
• Bally Total Fitness: Sports Organizations Industry Once the Bally Fitness Center’s position was improved, the company used an acquisition strategy to expand and strengthen its hold in the industry.
• Zumba Fitness Strategic Business Plan Because of a communication error between Zumba business owners and Crunch gyms, the Zumba business ended up losing a lot of time and money in legal negotiations concerning the rights of the songs used in […]
• The Positive Effects of Physical Fitness It is essential to understand the components that contribute to proper training to ensure that the chosen program presents benefits. The factor impacts both the heart functioning and the metabolism of an individual.
• Fitness and Its Importance for Health In the multi-tasking world of the 21st century, Every person is expected to be some sort of super being who can manage to function on very little to no sleep in order to perform in […]
• Fitness and Performance in Aviation The physical fitness and vigorous health of aviation workers are critical aspects in their performance, in aviation, because of the nature of some of their jobs that may be physically demanding.
• Benefits of Exercise and Importance of Overall Fitness Being in the best of health means more than the absence of illness. The American Heart Association recommends keeping track of body composition: how much of your body are fat, bone, and muscle.
• Fitness and Sport Learning Most of the theoretical and practical perspectives during the course have expanded my outlook on the role of sport in my life, as well as how it can enhance my professional fulfillment.
• Australian Fitness Industry Marketing Analysis The industry needs to have fitness programs designed specifically for different segments of the market. Hence, the industry should collaborate with the media to make these programs core to the lives of Australians.
• Fitness First Clubs Strategies The development of the training programs meets the company’s orientation on the effective structure and rivalry and the peculiarities of market domination model according to which the work of managers is organized.
• Planet Fitness: Strategic Positioning According to the Porter’s Model This focus is the first compromise that Planet Fitness made, deliberately moving away from catering to affluent customers with high demands on the gym and the level of service.
• Physical Fitness Training Programs for Athletes In summary, the article provides a general guideline for athletes to build muscle and improve performance by focusing on compound exercises, progressive overload, core strength, and flexibility.
• Health and Fitness: Developing a Healthy Community The overall health, physical development, emotional health, and social and emotional maturation of young people can all be impacted by substance use.
• Negligence Area in Gyms: Fitness Center Business Sustainability In some cases, due to factors such as the cost of purchasing them, people may opt to improvise them and therefore ignore the standards required.
• The True Fitness Company’s Interventions in Singapore In 2019, the company opened the largest commercial fitness center in Singapore at the Millenia Walk to meet the growing fitness and wellness services demand.
• Identifying Proper Fitness Resources This online resource serves as a collection of fitness and nutrition advice, as well as posts news related to the well-being industry.
• Horned Melon: The Role in Promoting Health and Fitness The presence of dietary fiber in horned melon is beneficial to the digestion process. In conclusion, weight reduction is one of the strategies people use to maintain their fitness and live healthily.
• A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life Fitzgerald tells stories of how athletes have had to return to the profession, facing the difficult stages of accepting their injuries and finding ways to cope.
• Army Soldier’s Fitness in the US and Saudi Arabia In the problem section, the inability of the Army to educate its subjects, along with some of the general trends regarding physical fitness in the US, Saudi Arabia, and the world’s militaries.
• Promoting Wellbeing in Homeless People: Group Fitness Intervention The authors of this article conducted the study to give insight into the importance of considering homeless people in the society they belong. The importance of the study was to encourage people to have inclusivity […]
• Fitness and Health Workforce Programs The first was the control group, used to compare results to the rest. This article can be used to inform the study about the potential options of intervention and affecting the target population.
• Gyms and Fitness Clubs’ Operation During the Covid-19 The best way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is to take measures and create the necessary conditions for maintaining the health of both customers of fitness clubs and their employees.
• COVID-19 Influence on Fitness Industry For this reason, the aim of our study will be to examine the changes in sports habits of people, as well as their intention to visit fitness centers in the near future.
• E-Marketing Plan for Fast Fitness Since e- marketing is the procedure of business communication and value generation for the target customers with the purpose to establishing relationship with them and gaining profit from the venture.
• Budget for a Health and Fitness Program Medical practitioners have been and should be in the forefront of catering for the health needs of society as a whole as seen in the codes and ethos outlined in the practice e.g.the Hippocratic Oath.
• Infant Nutrition and Fitness Infancy is a critical stage in life since a person establishes healthy consumption patterns.This patterns can lead to the infants acquiring optimal growth and healthy development.
• Nutritional Needs of an Older Adult: Lifecycle Nutrition and Fitness As a rule, female nutritional needs are considerably lower than the ones of a man unless a woman is pregnant. Men also tend to have a considerably higher calorie requirement.
• Fitness First Company Analysis The importance of operations management in forecasting is essential in the fitness industry, where there is the threat of the changes in demand and the newsvendor challenge.
• Management Processes and Supply Chain in Fitness Plus According to the owners in the case research, as the popularity of fitness and health grew, so did the need for more people to register for membership at the club.
• Olympus Strength and Power Fitness Center’s Business Plan This is a prime location within the outskirts of the Aston metropolitan area and provides a serene, spacious environment for would-be patrons of the gym.
• Promotional Strategy for a Chain of Fitness Centers To attract the audience, these people should recite the message that First Fitness could help to “look like this” with a sense of humor.
• Small Business Idea for Fitness Workout Gym The advantages and disadvantages of the four different forms of business organization, which include the following: The business is very easy to form considering that no legal requirements are required, except a business license.
• Developing a Fitness Program The training will involve an extensive warm-up, a gradual increase of the load, and isolated joint exercises for avoiding inaccurate movements.
• Hillingdon Country House Fitness Centre Unfair Standard Terms According to the Office of Fair Trading, “a standard term is unfair if it creates a significant imbalance in the parties rights and obligations under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer, contrary to […]
• Exercise and Health Promotion: Chandler Fitness Center I came to recognize that the objectives and the philosophy of the facility were to change people’s lives through fitness enhancement.
• Nutrition and Fitness to Raise Healthy Children Ohio Action for Healthy Kids wants to establish a county-wide obesity prevention program for children ages 8-12 and requests a grant of $56,600 to meet this goal.
• The Development of a Web Portal Solution for Jupiter Fitness Center The portal will provide the customers of the company more value for the services received, which is expected to contribute to their retention and give the company a competitive advantage.
• The Brain Fitness Exercises Having said that we have a dependency also indicates that there is a certain part of our body that we tend to use a lot less because of it.
• Bally Total Fitness Accounting The portion of the one-time enrolment fee attributable to the periods occurring beyond the year of receipt should be reflected in the books of the company at the close of the respective accounting period as […]
• Genetic Basis of Fitness Differences in Natural Populations In the article to summarize, the authors recognized that one way genomics affect biology is the possibility of identifying and studying how the characteristics affecting fitness, a key issue in natural selection, are genetically based.
• Health and Fitness Workout Plan When I created my blog, I used this information to develop the plan and decide how I would explain my meal choices.
• Teaching Styles: Fitness Director Therefore, the paper aims to discuss the application of the command style, the practice style, and the divergent production as applied to the profession of a fitness director to demonstrate their usefulness for this specialist’s […]
• A Comparative Study of Mental Health Between Players and Non Players In this context, the International Journal of Sports Sciences and Fitness published a study titled “A comparative study of mental health status between players and non-players” to foster awareness regarding the importance of sports activities […]
• A Personalized Fitness Program for a 3-Month Period The type of exercise undertaken may vary with individuals but in all cases, the big muscles of the body like the biceps and triceps muscles should be involved in the exercise as they make the […]
• Fitness and Health Operations as the Chance of Improving Health The programs should be designed in a way that in the end, the customers can be able to see the results or some change as the program goes on.
• Motivation Through Holistic Fitness: A Cost-Benefit Analysis Specifically, the costs involved in the process will be discussed, and the projected profitability will be assumed. Since I will increase my team members’ motivation, I expect to receive at least a 20% increase in […]
• Employee Motivation Through Holistic Fitness By promoting the emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical fitness of the staff, I will be able to increase their productivity and dedication.
• Motivation Through Holistic Fitness: A Risk Analysis Prior to implementing the holistic fitness idea within the organization, it is necessary to conduct a risk analysis of the planned project. Hence, the primary risk of the plan is the resistance of employees to […]
• The Concept of Army Combat Fitness Test There is complex and dynamic nature of the modern military and combat activity of the army and navy, the use of the latest information technologies, weapons and military equipment, and the country’s security interests.
• Issues With the Army Combat Fitness Test and Why They Should Be Fixed This paper will review the drawbacks of the ACFT, including inadequate requirements for women, injuries associated with the test, the increased complexity of the trial, and the necessity to complete the two-mile run.
• The Relevance of the Army Combat Fitness Test for the U.S. Army The new Army Combat Fitness Test will be implemented by October 2020 and is considered as a better concept to forecast a soldier’s readiness for the pressure one will encounter on the modern battlefield.
• The Benefits of Fitness for Physical and Mental Health It is necessary to mention that I have been able to improve my sleep schedule and its quality because of exercise.
• Anytime Fitness vs. Jetts Firm’s Business Model The paper also analyses the business models of the two firms to determine the firm with a better business model. This is probably one of the strengths of the business that has enabled it to […]
• Fitness Training Programs for Men and Women The reason for assessment of client’s fitness is that by acknowledging needs of Steve, the trainer will be able to elaborate a dedicated workout plan.
• Fitness Marketing Programs: Key Issues First, the word “guaranteed” is prone to misinterpretation: while the results obviously depend on the human factor, such as the persistence of the customers, the wording of the advertisement will likely be ruled out as […]
• Marketing Law Issues in the Fitness Industry For instance, the marketing campaign of the fitness program may include claims of the advantage in time of achieving certain results.
• Fitness and Health Terms Definition Health denotes a condition of total physical, psychological, and social welfare and not just the absence of sickness or frailty while fitness represents the capacity to satisfy the requirements of the environment.
• Saudi Arabian Spinning Studio in Fitness Industry The trainers will ensure that the clients are safe when they are in the studio and that all the rules and guidelines are followed strictly.
• Cardiovascular Fitness Effect on the Rate of Heart Beat The rate of the heart beating is also called the pulse rate and simply refers to the speed at which the heart pumps blood from the left ventricle to the rest of the body for […]
• The Benefit of Personal Fitness The importance of sports for the promotion of fitness and making one a better, more fulfilled person suggests both an explanation and a justification for the current and growing popularity of sports.
• Fitness Australia Organization Integrated Marketing Communication About 10 million people who need this sort of therapy and numbers of adult citizen of the country are classified as “clinically obese” for having the notable impact of stress and disability at a larger […]
• China’s Leading Companies Ethical Fitness The mention of corporate ethical responsibility in any part of China naturally draws attention to Adidas and Apple Inc.that had histories of child labor in the country.
• Fitness First Clubs Management and Strategy The main accents in the company are made on attracting the members to the clubs because of the company’s activity which is the leader in providing such kind of service.
• Saudi Arabia Fitness Centre: Company Description The main promoters of the fitness centre comprise of a group of young individuals who are advocating on the importance of healthy living.
• The La Fitness Centre: Competition Effects on Performance The La Fitness Centre is one of the renowned fitness centres in the Hatfield region. RO4: To purchase and modify the facilities to enable the La Fitness Centre to be competitive in the market.
• Fitness Express Company: Progress and Problems The validation outcomes are promising to lead to increased interest of the owner to explore the business and results of the project.
• Fitness Express Ltd Business Plan Fitness and sporting market continues to grow in Australia and New Zealand. The vision of the company is premised on delivering fitness and sporting gears to customers as quickly and efficiently as possible in […]
• Fitness Obsession and Its Causes Apart from that, physical attractiveness is one of the factors that can contribute to their success in various areas of life.
• Analysis of the Fitness First Health and Fitness Centre The purpose of starting the club was to provide health and fitness training services to people belonging to different age groups and income levels under the directorship of the co-founders.
• Healthcare Issues: LA Fitness for Students and Healthy Living Through Fitness Programs Inclusion of sports and physical exercise classes in learning institutions justifies the significance of exercise to students. LA Fitness has physical exercise programs that are cost-friendly to college students.
• 24 Hour Fitness Worldwide Inc. Implementation Plan 24 Hour Fitness Worldwide Inc.is based in California and was established in the year 1983 for the purposes of providing fitness services to the population.
• Business Plan for Star Fitness Center Those living and working in the city will have the opportunity to use the facility that is equipped with the latest technology for body fitness.
• Academic Achievement and Physical Fitness This study contributes to the growing body of knowledge, which identifies that there is a positive correlation between physical fitness and academic achievement.
• Fitness Shoes Marketing Strategy The company’s location in China has created many issues and changes in the company due to the laws and regulations, global changes, data protection and the legislation of the country.
• Body Fitness and Health Yuill and Barry argues that “both male and female do different types of exercises so that they can acquire their preferred body shapes and due to complex social relations, especially in the universities, females are […]
• Ethics and Professional Standards of Fitness Gym One area where ethics and professional responsibility apply to fitness gym is in the relationship between the trainer and the client in the gym.
• Marketing program for a health and fitness club It is the responsibility of the marketing agency of the company to investigate what goes on in the mind of the customers.
• The Impact of a Fitness Intervention on People with Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities This is one of the issues that should be singled out. This is one of the issues that should be considered.
• Fit and Well: Core Concepts and Labs in Physical Fitness and Wellness In particular, the authors of the book tried to explain the causes of major diseases and to describe the necessary sport activities to prevent and overcome them.hey expressed the medical point of view in the […]
• Recreational Therapy: Fitness Impact on the Disabled The quarterly description has six basic components that guide recreational therapists in providing care and are entered in the patient’s chart: the goal of the treatment/intervention; the intervention plan; the RT practitioner’s views on the […]
• Strategies for 24 Hour Fitness However, each of the three kinds of value discipline relies on the type of service or product provided by the organization as well as the culture maintained by the given organization.
• Fitness for Use in Operation Management From this perspective, the notion of fitness for use is important when customers draw conclusions about usability of products and services because personal needs are different, and the quality and fitness of the product or […]
• Physical Fitness and Sport Policy in the Cold War Johnson presidential administration shifted the priorities in the sports national policy and vision of sports rivalry in the United States.”Addressing the subject in terms of federal initiatives during the 1960s, this article will argue that […]
• Fitness for Life: Program Analysis This condition prompted Lincoln University to introduce a ‘Fitness for life Program’, which endeavors to, peg physical fitness of students to academic merit in the attainment of diplomas.
• The Genesis Fitness Club The use of the website for information management also serve as an advantage since the company expenses due to the reduced number of personnel required as well as expenses required for stationeries and this in […]
• How Can Fitness Overcome Fast Food?
• What Does Your Fitness Assessment Tell You?
• Does Cardiorespiratory Fitness Influence the Effect of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Executive Function?
• How Can Fitness Clubs Leverage Social Media?
• Can Exercise Increase Fitness and Reduce Weight in Patients With Schizophrenia and Depression?
• How Do Health and Fitness Facilities Affect Communities?
• Does Cardiorespiratory Fitness Buffer Stress Reactivity and Stress Recovery in Police Officers?
• How Are Consumers Convinced That It Is Necessary to Take Fitness?
• Why Is Fitness Important in Our Daily Life?
• Does Fitness Bring People Together?
• How Does Physical Fitness Improve the Quality of Your Life?
• Does Higher Physical Fitness Protect Master Athletes From Consequences of COVID-19 Infection?
• How Reliable Are Wearable Fitness Tracking Devices?
• Does Physical Fitness Improve Academic Success?
• How Does Exercise Reduce Stress?
• What Can Regular Fitness Do for You?
• Do Warm-up Exercises Play a Role in Developing the Physical Fitness of Players?
• Is Physical Fitness Training Beneficial or Dangerous for Stroke Patients?
• In What Cases Are There Increases in Physical Activity but No Measurable Gains in Physical Fitness?
• Can Physical Fitness Impact Your Research Capabilities?
• Is There a Correlation Between Cardiorespiratory Fitness and the Incidence of Sudden Cardiac Death in Athletes?
• How to Assess the Stamina and Physical Fitness of an Individual?
• Is There a Difference Between Physical Activity and Physical Fitness?
• Can Yoga Enhance Both Mental and Physical Fitness?
• How Important Is It to Stick to a Routine for Maintaining Health?
• What Is the Importance of Fitness in Life?
• How Does Physical Activity Affect Your Fitness?
• Why Is Fitness Important to You as a Student?
• How Do You Stay Fit and Healthy?
• Why Are Fitness Standards Higher Than Health Standards?
• Pros and Cons of Regular Gym Attendance
• Effective Practices for Gym Safety and Injury Prevention
• Personal Trainers’ Role in Achieving Fitness Goals
• The Psychology of Gym Motivation: How to Overcome Barriers
• Social and Psychological Benefits of Group Fitness Classes
• Pros and Cons of Working Out at Home Instead of Gyms
• Gym Etiquette for a Positive Workout Environment
• How Gym Design and Atmosphere Influence Workout Experience
• Technological Advancements and Innovative Fitness Concepts
• The Evolution of Gym Culture from Greek Gymnasiums to Modern Fitness Centers
• Hydration and its Impact on Exercise
• Fitness for Different Age Groups
• Aerobic Exercise for Cardiovascular Fitness
• Pros and Cons High-Intensity Interval Training
• Why Physical Activity Is Important for Overall Health
• Nutrition and Fitness: How Diet Can Enhance the Effect of Exercise
• Exercise for Building Muscles and Increasing Bone Density
• How Stretching and Yoga Increase Flexibility and Mobility
• The Link Between Quality Rest and Exercise Performance
• Mindfulness, Yoga, and Meditation: Holistic Approaches to Health
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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Physical Exercise — Exercise in our daily life

What Do You Feel after Exercise: My Experience

• Categories: Physical Exercise

About this sample

Words: 855 |

Published: Mar 14, 2019

Words: 855 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Works Cited

• Smith, J. (2019). The Psychological Benefits of Exercise: A Comprehensive Review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 15(2), 45-62.
• Johnson, L., & Davis, M. (2017). The Impact of Exercise on Stress Reduction: A Meta-analysis. Journal of Health Psychology, 32(3), 201-215.
• Thompson, C. L., & Anderson, R. (2018). Exercise and Mental Well-being: Exploring the Connection. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 42(1), 189-204.
• Davis, A., & Roberts, M. (2020). Physical Activity and Emotional Well-being: A Longitudinal Study. Journal of Positive Psychology, 28(4), 201-215.
• Gonzalez, L. S., & Wilson, B. (2016). The Effects of Exercise on Sleep Quality and Duration. Journal of Sleep Research, 52(2), 345-360.
• Johnson, S., & Miller, C. (2019). Exercise and Social Interaction: The Role of Physical Activity in Promoting Social Bonds. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 45(4), 521-536.
• Baker, S., & Turner, R. (2017). Exercise and Self-esteem: Exploring the Relationship. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 32(1), 89-104.
• Smith, E., & Davis, M. A. (2018). The Impact of Exercise on Weight Management : A Comparative Study. Journal of Obesity, 28(2), 233-248.
• Anderson, R., & Roberts, M. (2016). The Psychological and Social Benefits of Exercise: A Systematic Review. Journal of Health Promotion, 42(2), 233-248.
• Gonzalez, L. S., & Johnson, S. (2020). The Effects of Exercise on Cognitive Functioning: A Meta-analysis. Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, 28(2), 233-248.

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• What Is a Thesis? | Ultimate Guide & Examples

What Is a Thesis? | Ultimate Guide & Examples

Published on September 14, 2022 by Tegan George . Revised on November 21, 2023.

A thesis is a type of research paper based on your original research. It is usually submitted as the final step of a master’s program or a capstone to a bachelor’s degree.

Writing a thesis can be a daunting experience. Other than a dissertation , it is one of the longest pieces of writing students typically complete. It relies on your ability to conduct research from start to finish: choosing a relevant topic , crafting a proposal , designing your research , collecting data , developing a robust analysis, drawing strong conclusions , and writing concisely .

Thesis template

You can also download our full thesis template in the format of your choice below. Our template includes a ready-made table of contents , as well as guidance for what each chapter should include. It’s easy to make it your own, and can help you get started.

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Table of contents

Thesis vs. thesis statement, how to structure a thesis, acknowledgements or preface, list of figures and tables, list of abbreviations, introduction, literature review, methodology, reference list, proofreading and editing, defending your thesis, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about theses.

You may have heard the word thesis as a standalone term or as a component of academic writing called a thesis statement . Keep in mind that these are two very different things.

• A thesis statement is a very common component of an essay, particularly in the humanities. It usually comprises 1 or 2 sentences in the introduction of your essay , and should clearly and concisely summarize the central points of your academic essay .
• A thesis is a long-form piece of academic writing, often taking more than a full semester to complete. It is generally a degree requirement for Master’s programs, and is also sometimes required to complete a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts colleges.
• In the US, a dissertation is generally written as a final step toward obtaining a PhD.
• In other countries (particularly the UK), a dissertation is generally written at the bachelor’s or master’s level.

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The final structure of your thesis depends on a variety of components, such as:

• Your discipline
• Your theoretical approach

Humanities theses are often structured more like a longer-form essay . Just like in an essay, you build an argument to support a central thesis.

In both hard and social sciences, theses typically include an introduction , literature review , methodology section ,  results section , discussion section , and conclusion section . These are each presented in their own dedicated section or chapter. In some cases, you might want to add an appendix .

Thesis examples

We’ve compiled a short list of thesis examples to help you get started.

• Example thesis #1:   “Abolition, Africans, and Abstraction: the Influence of the ‘Noble Savage’ on British and French Antislavery Thought, 1787-1807” by Suchait Kahlon.
• Example thesis #2: “’A Starving Man Helping Another Starving Man’: UNRRA, India, and the Genesis of Global Relief, 1943-1947″ by Julian Saint Reiman.

The very first page of your thesis contains all necessary identifying information, including:

• Your full title
• Your full name
• Your department
• Your institution and degree program
• Your submission date.

Sometimes the title page also includes your student ID, the name of your supervisor, or the university’s logo. Check out your university’s guidelines if you’re not sure.

Read more about title pages

The acknowledgements section is usually optional. Its main point is to allow you to thank everyone who helped you in your thesis journey, such as supervisors, friends, or family. You can also choose to write a preface , but it’s typically one or the other, not both.

Read more about acknowledgements Read more about prefaces

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An abstract is a short summary of your thesis. Usually a maximum of 300 words long, it’s should include brief descriptions of your research objectives , methods, results, and conclusions. Though it may seem short, it introduces your work to your audience, serving as a first impression of your thesis.

Read more about abstracts

A table of contents lists all of your sections, plus their corresponding page numbers and subheadings if you have them. This helps your reader seamlessly navigate your document.

Your table of contents should include all the major parts of your thesis. In particular, don’t forget the the appendices. If you used heading styles, it’s easy to generate an automatic table Microsoft Word.

Read more about tables of contents

While not mandatory, if you used a lot of tables and/or figures, it’s nice to include a list of them to help guide your reader. It’s also easy to generate one of these in Word: just use the “Insert Caption” feature.

Read more about lists of figures and tables

If you have used a lot of industry- or field-specific abbreviations in your thesis, you should include them in an alphabetized list of abbreviations . This way, your readers can easily look up any meanings they aren’t familiar with.

Read more about lists of abbreviations

Relatedly, if you find yourself using a lot of very specialized or field-specific terms that may not be familiar to your reader, consider including a glossary . Alphabetize the terms you want to include with a brief definition.

Read more about glossaries

An introduction sets up the topic, purpose, and relevance of your thesis, as well as expectations for your reader. This should:

• Ground your research topic , sharing any background information your reader may need
• Define the scope of your work
• Introduce any existing research on your topic, situating your work within a broader problem or debate
• State your research question(s)
• Outline (briefly) how the remainder of your work will proceed

In other words, your introduction should clearly and concisely show your reader the “what, why, and how” of your research.

Read more about introductions

A literature review helps you gain a robust understanding of any extant academic work on your topic, encompassing:

• Selecting relevant sources
• Determining the credibility of your sources
• Critically evaluating each of your sources
• Drawing connections between sources, including any themes, patterns, conflicts, or gaps

A literature review is not merely a summary of existing work. Rather, your literature review should ultimately lead to a clear justification for your own research, perhaps via:

• Addressing a gap in the literature
• Building on existing knowledge to draw new conclusions
• Exploring a new theoretical or methodological approach
• Introducing a new solution to an unresolved problem
• Definitively advocating for one side of a theoretical debate

Read more about literature reviews

Theoretical framework

Your literature review can often form the basis for your theoretical framework, but these are not the same thing. A theoretical framework defines and analyzes the concepts and theories that your research hinges on.

Read more about theoretical frameworks

Your methodology chapter shows your reader how you conducted your research. It should be written clearly and methodically, easily allowing your reader to critically assess the credibility of your argument. Furthermore, your methods section should convince your reader that your method was the best way to answer your research question.

A methodology section should generally include:

• Your overall approach ( quantitative vs. qualitative )
• Your research methods (e.g., a longitudinal study )
• Your data collection methods (e.g., interviews or a controlled experiment
• Any tools or materials you used (e.g., computer software)
• The data analysis methods you chose (e.g., statistical analysis , discourse analysis )
• A strong, but not defensive justification of your methods

Read more about methodology sections

Your results section should highlight what your methodology discovered. These two sections work in tandem, but shouldn’t repeat each other. While your results section can include hypotheses or themes, don’t include any speculation or new arguments here.

Your results section should:

• State each (relevant) result with any (relevant) descriptive statistics (e.g., mean , standard deviation ) and inferential statistics (e.g., test statistics , p values )
• Explain how each result relates to the research question
• Determine whether the hypothesis was supported

Additional data (like raw numbers or interview transcripts ) can be included as an appendix . You can include tables and figures, but only if they help the reader better understand your results.

Read more about results sections

Your discussion section is where you can interpret your results in detail. Did they meet your expectations? How well do they fit within the framework that you built? You can refer back to any relevant source material to situate your results within your field, but leave most of that analysis in your literature review.

For any unexpected results, offer explanations or alternative interpretations of your data.

Read more about discussion sections

Your thesis conclusion should concisely answer your main research question. It should leave your reader with an ultra-clear understanding of your central argument, and emphasize what your research specifically has contributed to your field.

Why does your research matter? What recommendations for future research do you have? Lastly, wrap up your work with any concluding remarks.

Read more about conclusions

In order to avoid plagiarism , don’t forget to include a full reference list at the end of your thesis, citing the sources that you used. Choose one citation style and follow it consistently throughout your thesis, taking note of the formatting requirements of each style.

Which style you choose is often set by your department or your field, but common styles include MLA , Chicago , and APA.

Create APA citations Create MLA citations

In order to stay clear and concise, your thesis should include the most essential information needed to answer your research question. However, chances are you have many contributing documents, like interview transcripts or survey questions . These can be added as appendices , to save space in the main body.

Read more about appendices

Once you’re done writing, the next part of your editing process begins. Leave plenty of time for proofreading and editing prior to submission. Nothing looks worse than grammar mistakes or sloppy spelling errors!

Consider using a professional thesis editing service or grammar checker to make sure your final project is perfect.

Once you’ve submitted your final product, it’s common practice to have a thesis defense, an oral component of your finished work. This is scheduled by your advisor or committee, and usually entails a presentation and Q&A session.

After your defense , your committee will meet to determine if you deserve any departmental honors or accolades. However, keep in mind that defenses are usually just a formality. If there are any serious issues with your work, these should be resolved with your advisor way before a defense.

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or research bias, make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

Research bias

• Survivorship bias
• Self-serving bias
• Availability heuristic
• Halo effect
• Hindsight bias
• Deep learning
• Generative AI
• Machine learning
• Reinforcement learning
• Supervised vs. unsupervised learning

 (AI) Tools

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• Paraphrasing Tool
• Text Summarizer
• AI Detector
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The conclusion of your thesis or dissertation shouldn’t take up more than 5–7% of your overall word count.

If you only used a few abbreviations in your thesis or dissertation , you don’t necessarily need to include a list of abbreviations .

If your abbreviations are numerous, or if you think they won’t be known to your audience, it’s never a bad idea to add one. They can also improve readability, minimizing confusion about abbreviations unfamiliar to your reader.

When you mention different chapters within your text, it’s considered best to use Roman numerals for most citation styles. However, the most important thing here is to remain consistent whenever using numbers in your dissertation .

A thesis or dissertation outline is one of the most critical first steps in your writing process. It helps you to lay out and organize your ideas and can provide you with a roadmap for deciding what kind of research you’d like to undertake.

Generally, an outline contains information on the different sections included in your thesis or dissertation , such as:

• Your anticipated title
• Your abstract
• Your chapters (sometimes subdivided into further topics like literature review , research methods , avenues for future research, etc.)

A thesis is typically written by students finishing up a bachelor’s or Master’s degree. Some educational institutions, particularly in the liberal arts, have mandatory theses, but they are often not mandatory to graduate from bachelor’s degrees. It is more common for a thesis to be a graduation requirement from a Master’s degree.

Even if not mandatory, you may want to consider writing a thesis if you:

• Plan to attend graduate school soon
• Have a particular topic you’d like to study more in-depth
• Are considering a career in research
• Would like a capstone experience to tie up your academic experience

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The Importance of Working Out with Consistency

Fitday Editor

Committing to a fitness regimen means mapping out a plan for an activity or a series of activities that can be done with consistency. For some people, it is common to become energized about working out and jump right in. In these cases, unless there is a long-term plan in place or some thought has gone into how the fitness activity will be sustained, there is often a drop off in enthusiasm, resulting in inconsistency.

A well thought out fitness plan will go a long way in helping you to reach your goals. To achieve consistency, you will want to think about the types of exercise that you can do on a regular basis. You will want to exercise at least three to four times per week for the best results.

Once you have decided on the type of exercise you want to engage in, creating consistency means being realistic about how much time you need to devote to your regular exercise regimen. Create a workout schedule that involves at least a few minutes a day for a warm up, 20 minutes for a cardio activity and additional time for strength training and a cool down. You might write down your schedule to solidify your commitment to your exercise plan.

Sticking to a regular exercise regimen will keep you feeling revived both physically and mentally. When you exercise with consistency, your muscles will develop gradually and your mind will experience reduced levels of stress and greater relaxation.

Often people jump in when wanting to work out, however, when enthusiasm runs out, when there isn’t a sign of big improvement, or they reached their goal and become compliant, they begin to be more inconsistent with their schedule which leads it eventually no longer working out anymore.

This article discusses how important it is to build a reasonable schedule around working out because consistency is what eventually strengthen the habit to keep the routine. There seems to a correlation between consistency and long-term routines. Workout plans have worked for a lot of individuals in building a consistent regime and is a good insight on how to incorporate this habit if different parts of life.

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Think of yourself as a member of a jury, listening to a lawyer who is presenting an opening argument. You'll want to know very soon whether the lawyer believes the accused to be guilty or not guilty, and how the lawyer plans to convince you. Readers of academic essays are like jury members: before they have read too far, they want to know what the essay argues as well as how the writer plans to make the argument. After reading your thesis statement, the reader should think, "This essay is going to try to convince me of something. I'm not convinced yet, but I'm interested to see how I might be."

An effective thesis cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." A thesis is not a topic; nor is it a fact; nor is it an opinion. "Reasons for the fall of communism" is a topic. "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" is a fact known by educated people. "The fall of communism is the best thing that ever happened in Europe" is an opinion. (Superlatives like "the best" almost always lead to trouble. It's impossible to weigh every "thing" that ever happened in Europe. And what about the fall of Hitler? Couldn't that be "the best thing"?)

A good thesis has two parts. It should tell what you plan to argue, and it should "telegraph" how you plan to argue—that is, what particular support for your claim is going where in your essay.

Steps in Constructing a Thesis

First, analyze your primary sources.  Look for tension, interest, ambiguity, controversy, and/or complication. Does the author contradict himself or herself? Is a point made and later reversed? What are the deeper implications of the author's argument? Figuring out the why to one or more of these questions, or to related questions, will put you on the path to developing a working thesis. (Without the why, you probably have only come up with an observation—that there are, for instance, many different metaphors in such-and-such a poem—which is not a thesis.)

Once you have a working thesis, write it down.  There is nothing as frustrating as hitting on a great idea for a thesis, then forgetting it when you lose concentration. And by writing down your thesis you will be forced to think of it clearly, logically, and concisely. You probably will not be able to write out a final-draft version of your thesis the first time you try, but you'll get yourself on the right track by writing down what you have.

Keep your thesis prominent in your introduction.  A good, standard place for your thesis statement is at the end of an introductory paragraph, especially in shorter (5-15 page) essays. Readers are used to finding theses there, so they automatically pay more attention when they read the last sentence of your introduction. Although this is not required in all academic essays, it is a good rule of thumb.

Anticipate the counterarguments.  Once you have a working thesis, you should think about what might be said against it. This will help you to refine your thesis, and it will also make you think of the arguments that you'll need to refute later on in your essay. (Every argument has a counterargument. If yours doesn't, then it's not an argument—it may be a fact, or an opinion, but it is not an argument.)

This statement is on its way to being a thesis. However, it is too easy to imagine possible counterarguments. For example, a political observer might believe that Dukakis lost because he suffered from a "soft-on-crime" image. If you complicate your thesis by anticipating the counterargument, you'll strengthen your argument, as shown in the sentence below.

Some Caveats and Some Examples

A thesis is never a question.  Readers of academic essays expect to have questions discussed, explored, or even answered. A question ("Why did communism collapse in Eastern Europe?") is not an argument, and without an argument, a thesis is dead in the water.

A thesis is never a list.  "For political, economic, social and cultural reasons, communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" does a good job of "telegraphing" the reader what to expect in the essay—a section about political reasons, a section about economic reasons, a section about social reasons, and a section about cultural reasons. However, political, economic, social and cultural reasons are pretty much the only possible reasons why communism could collapse. This sentence lacks tension and doesn't advance an argument. Everyone knows that politics, economics, and culture are important.

A thesis should never be vague, combative or confrontational.  An ineffective thesis would be, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because communism is evil." This is hard to argue (evil from whose perspective? what does evil mean?) and it is likely to mark you as moralistic and judgmental rather than rational and thorough. It also may spark a defensive reaction from readers sympathetic to communism. If readers strongly disagree with you right off the bat, they may stop reading.

An effective thesis has a definable, arguable claim.  "While cultural forces contributed to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the disintegration of economies played the key role in driving its decline" is an effective thesis sentence that "telegraphs," so that the reader expects the essay to have a section about cultural forces and another about the disintegration of economies. This thesis makes a definite, arguable claim: that the disintegration of economies played a more important role than cultural forces in defeating communism in Eastern Europe. The reader would react to this statement by thinking, "Perhaps what the author says is true, but I am not convinced. I want to read further to see how the author argues this claim."

A thesis should be as clear and specific as possible.  Avoid overused, general terms and abstractions. For example, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because of the ruling elite's inability to address the economic concerns of the people" is more powerful than "Communism collapsed due to societal discontent."

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Tips and Examples for Writing Thesis Statements

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This resource provides tips for creating a thesis statement and examples of different types of thesis statements.

Tips for Writing Your Thesis Statement

1. Determine what kind of paper you are writing:

• An analytical paper breaks down an issue or an idea into its component parts, evaluates the issue or idea, and presents this breakdown and evaluation to the audience.
• An expository (explanatory) paper explains something to the audience.
• An argumentative paper makes a claim about a topic and justifies this claim with specific evidence. The claim could be an opinion, a policy proposal, an evaluation, a cause-and-effect statement, or an interpretation. The goal of the argumentative paper is to convince the audience that the claim is true based on the evidence provided.

If you are writing a text that does not fall under these three categories (e.g., a narrative), a thesis statement somewhere in the first paragraph could still be helpful to your reader.

2. Your thesis statement should be specific—it should cover only what you will discuss in your paper and should be supported with specific evidence.

3. The thesis statement usually appears at the end of the first paragraph of a paper.

4. Your topic may change as you write, so you may need to revise your thesis statement to reflect exactly what you have discussed in the paper.

Thesis Statement Examples

Example of an analytical thesis statement:

The paper that follows should:

• Explain the analysis of the college admission process
• Explain the challenge facing admissions counselors

Example of an expository (explanatory) thesis statement:

• Explain how students spend their time studying, attending class, and socializing with peers

Example of an argumentative thesis statement:

• Present an argument and give evidence to support the claim that students should pursue community projects before entering college

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Benefits of working out.

• Word Count: 524
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            Many people don't like the idea of staying in shape by doing aerobics, weight training, core-strengthening exercises and having good nutrition. But what they don't realize is that it is great for your body and there are many benefits.              .              Aerobic activity can be anything from walking, biking, jogging, swimming, aerobic classes and cross-country skiing. By doing these activities your body uses the same large muscle group for 15-20 minutes while your maximum heart rate is maintained at 60-80%. The benefits of this is that it strengthens your heart and lungs, there is an increase in cardiopulmonary efficiency, a reduction in cholesterol, stress, anxiety and an improvement in circulation. Other benefits include control of body fat. This is possible when aerobic activity is combined with strength training along with a proper diet which will eventually lower your body fat. Aerobics also help reduce fatigue, helps tone muscles, increases lean body mass, aids with sleeping, and lowers tension.              .              Weight training brings self-confidence and body satisfaction by building, toning muscles, and maintaining lean body mass (for people wanting to lose weight). Weight training also lowers the risk of many diseases like osteoporosis by strengthening your bones, diabetes, getting hurt because of weak muscles and it decreases your gastrointestinal transit time which reduces the risk of colon cancer. By training, you raise your metabolism. This makes your body able to burn calories 24/7. In many people their metabolism starts to go down at the age of 30, but by weight training this can be reversed. It also has positive effects on your physical body with the improvement of posture and improvement of co-ordination and balance.              By doing core-strengthening exercises our body reacts positively and in turn helps our heart and lungs. Exercise is very popular for older people because it lowers them from physical declines that come along with the aging process.

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Essays Related to Benefits of Working Out

1. working out for better health.

Working out had tremendous effects on me. ... Working out made my addiction to the gym stronger. ... When I first started working out. ... I still had my bad habits even when working out. ... Working out has improved my life and should be recognized for all the benefits it gives....

• Word Count: 1089
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

2. Working Women

Researches found out that working woman spend an average of 50 hours a week at the job place. ... So, it can be stated that house wives could be more tired and stressed out than working women. ... Two-career families benefit in one more way. ... In fact, they have also found out that it was men who had problems with leaving family stress at home. ... Females are getting low-paid positions without opportunities to promotion and various benefits, while men are getting high-paid jobs with all the benefits. ...

• Word Count: 1739
• Approx Pages: 7

3. Benefits

Flexible scheduling, paid time off, and child care were singled out as key programs that impress job candidates. 3 Employee benefits are becoming a major part of what employees are looking for from their companies. ... To start out lets first list the benefits that are out there. ... Flex time cuts out all of the sick time and personnel time, along with cutting out vacation time, and is all lumped together so one could take more time off at one time. ... With more two working families, a big concern among the parents is child care. ... The injury has to keep the worker out of work for an exten...

• Word Count: 1700

4. Pros and cons of teenage working

We were even well paid starting out at 3 dollars an hour at ages 5 or so and slowly graduating our way up in the income. ... Other advantages are: Teenagers learn money management Getting along with co-workers and leadership skills Dealing with customers, Time management/optimization Working alongside with managers and supervisors Team management/leadership The most important benefit that teenagers get by working is learning how to manage their time. ... These qualities are learned from working as teens and are carried throughout their lives to benefit them from then on. ......

• Word Count: 1606
• Approx Pages: 6

5. The Hard-Working American

Everyone in the world works, working hard is a good thing. But is working too much a good thing? ... Or just because they can't find anything more interesting than working? ... The U.S is the only country in the Americas without a national paid parental leave benefit. ... That's one of thousands reasons they give out to explain why Americans prefer earning to spending. ...

• Word Count: 731
• Approx Pages: 3

6. Increasing Social Security Benefits

The goals of Social Security are primarily to raise elderly, retired people out from poverty. ... It is arbitrary to raise the age because people who can work to support themselves will make more money if they decide to continue working instead of drawing out Social Security. ... Social Security is a social insurance program built to give everyone a safety net when they get old and stop working. It provides a minimum income to keep them out of poverty. ... Social Security lifts 14 million elderly people out of poverty. ...

• Word Count: 2076
• Approx Pages: 8

7. The crucible- discuss the factors working against justice

What are the factors working against justice? ... The use of false accusations for the personal benefit of certain characters is an imperative factor working against justice. ... She must be ripped out of the world!" Cheever responds "Ripped out of the world! ... The dancing- came out to be really bad when it was just dancing. ...

• Word Count: 595

8. Human Resources - Compensation and Benefits

Making, packing, or buying lunch in the morning isn't a concern for these workers, nor is having to go out to get lunch during a work break (Petoff). ... Working from home or off-site will help an individual manage their time, collaborate with others, and have time to explore other aspects of work. ... However, if one does not feel like working at all and not even from home, then that is where PTO, or paid for time off comes into play. ... Moving forward, the last benefit that will be discussed is the death benefit. ... Coping with the death of a spouse is never an easy time and Google h...

• Word Count: 1285
• Approx Pages: 5

9. Unemployment Extension Benefits

When state benefits end at 26 weeks, the unemployed begin the first tier of federal benefits. ... However, this money will not only help out those who cannot find a job, but it will also ease some of the federal budget deficit, which is proposed to be $1.6 trillion in February (Scherer). ... While many people will be helped by the new extension, the "99ers" are out of luck. ... The unemployment extension will help out millions of Americans who have found themselves out of a job in the past few years. ... Obama is also working on passing new legislation for small businesses, such as tax cut...

• Word Count: 816
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Essays About Work: 7 Examples and 8 Prompts

If you want to write well-researched essays about work, check out our guide of helpful essay examples and writing prompts for this topic.

Whether employed or self-employed, we all need to work to earn a living. Work could provide a source of purpose for some but also stress for many. The causes of stress could be an unmanageable workload, low pay, slow career development, an incompetent boss, and companies that do not care about your well-being.  Essays about work  can help us understand how to achieve a work/life balance for long-term happiness.

Work can still be a happy place to develop essential skills such as leadership and teamwork. If we adopt the right mindset, we can focus on situations we can improve and avoid stressing ourselves over situations we have no control over. We should also be free to speak up against workplace issues and abuses to defend our labor rights. Check out our  essay writing topics  for more.

5 Examples of Essays About Work

1.  when the future of work means always looking for your next job by bruce horovitz, 2. ‘quiet quitting’ isn’t the solution for burnout by rebecca vidra, 3. the science of why we burn out and don’t have to by joe robinson , 4. how to manage your career in a vuca world by murali murthy, 5. the challenges of regulating the labor market in developing countries by gordon betcherman, 6. creating the best workplace on earth by rob goffee and gareth jones, 7. employees seek personal value and purpose at work. be prepared to deliver by jordan turner, 8 writing prompts on essays about work, 1. a dream work environment, 2. how is school preparing you for work, 3. the importance of teamwork at work, 4. a guide to find work for new graduates, 5. finding happiness at work, 6. motivating people at work, 7. advantages and disadvantages of working from home, 8. critical qualities you need to thrive at work.

“For a host of reasons—some for a higher salary, others for improved benefits, and many in search of better company culture—America’s workforce is constantly looking for its next gig.”

A perennial search for a job that fulfills your sense of purpose has been an emerging trend in the work landscape in recent years. Yet, as human resource managers scramble to minimize employee turnover, some still believe there will still be workers who can exit a company through a happy retirement. You might also be interested in these  essays about unemployment .

“…[L]et’s creatively collaborate on ways to re-establish our own sense of value in our institutions while saying yes only to invitations that nourish us instead of sucking up more of our energy.”

Quiet quitting signals more profound issues underlying work, such as burnout or the bosses themselves. It is undesirable in any workplace, but to have it in school, among faculty members, spells doom as the future of the next generation is put at stake. In this essay, a teacher learns how to keep from burnout and rebuild a sense of community that drew her into the job in the first place.

“We don’t think about managing the demands that are pushing our buttons, we just keep reacting to them on autopilot on a route I call the burnout treadmill. Just keep going until the paramedics arrive.”

Studies have shown the detrimental health effects of stress on our mind, emotions and body. Yet we still willingly take on the treadmill to stress, forgetting our boundaries and wellness. It is time to normalize seeking help from our superiors to resolve burnout and refuse overtime and heavy workloads.

“As we start to emerge from the pandemic, today’s workplace demands a different kind of VUCA career growth. One that’s Versatile, Uplifting, Choice-filled and Active.”

The only thing constant in work is change. However, recent decades have witnessed greater work volatility where tech-oriented people and creative minds flourish the most. The essay provides tips for applying at work daily to survive and even thrive in the VUCA world. You might also be interested in these  essays about motivation .

“Ultimately, the biggest challenge in regulating labor markets in developing countries is what to do about the hundreds of millions of workers (or even more) who are beyond the reach of formal labor market rules and social protections.”

The challenge in regulating work is balancing the interest of employees to have dignified work conditions and for employers to operate at the most reasonable cost. But in developing countries, the difficulties loom larger, with issues going beyond equal pay to universal social protection coverage and monitoring employers’ compliance.

“Suppose you want to design the best company on earth to work for. What would it be like? For three years, we’ve been investigating this question by asking hundreds of executives in surveys and in seminars all over the world to describe their ideal organization.”

If you’ve ever wondered what would make the best workplace, you’re not alone. In this essay, Jones looks at how employers can create a better workplace for employees by using surveys and interviews. The writer found that individuality and a sense of support are key to creating positive workplace environments where employees are comfortable.

“Bottom line: People seek purpose in their lives — and that includes work. The more an employer limits those things that create this sense of purpose, the less likely employees will stay at their positions.”

In this essay, Turner looks at how employees seek value in the workplace. This essay dives into how, as humans, we all need a purpose. If we can find purpose in our work, our overall happiness increases. So, a value and purpose-driven job role can create a positive and fruitful work environment for both workers and employers.

In this essay, talk about how you envision yourself as a professional in the future. You can be as creative as to describe your workplace, your position, and your colleagues’ perception of you. Next, explain why this is the line of work you dream of and what you can contribute to society through this work. Finally, add what learning programs you’ve signed up for to prepare your skills for your dream job. For more, check out our list of simple essays topics for intermediate writers .

For your essay, look deeply into how your school prepares the young generation to be competitive in the future workforce. If you want to go the extra mile, you can interview students who have graduated from your school and are now professionals. Ask them about the programs or practices in your school that they believe have helped mold them better at their current jobs.

In a workplace where colleagues compete against each other, leaders could find it challenging to cultivate a sense of cooperation and teamwork. So, find out what creative activities companies can undertake to encourage teamwork across teams and divisions. For example, regular team-building activities help strengthen professional bonds while assisting workers to recharge their minds.

Finding a job after receiving your undergraduate diploma can be full of stress, pressure, and hard work. Write an essay that handholds graduate students in drafting their resumes and preparing for an interview. You may also recommend the top job market platforms that match them with their dream work. You may also ask recruitment experts for tips on how graduates can make a positive impression in job interviews.

Creating a fun and happy workplace may seem impossible. But there has been a flurry of efforts in the corporate world to keep workers happy. Why? To make them more productive. So, for your essay, gather research on what practices companies and policy-makers should adopt to help workers find meaning in their jobs. For example, how often should salary increases occur? You may also focus on what drives people to quit jobs that raise money. If it’s not the financial package that makes them satisfied, what does? Discuss these questions with your readers for a compelling essay.

Motivation could scale up workers’ productivity, efficiency, and ambition for higher positions and a longer tenure in your company. Knowing which method of motivation best suits your employees requires direct managers to know their people and find their potential source of intrinsic motivation. For example, managers should be able to tell whether employees are having difficulties with their tasks to the point of discouragement or find the task too easy to boredom.

A handful of managers have been worried about working from home for fears of lowering productivity and discouraging collaborative work. Meanwhile, those who embrace work-from-home arrangements are beginning to see the greater value and benefits of giving employees greater flexibility on when and where to work. So first, draw up the pros and cons of working from home. You can also interview professionals working or currently working at home. Finally, provide a conclusion on whether working from home can harm work output or boost it.

Identifying critical skills at work could depend on the work applied. However, there are inherent values and behavioral competencies that recruiters demand highly from employees. List the top five qualities a professional should possess to contribute significantly to the workplace. For example, being proactive is a valuable skill because workers have the initiative to produce without waiting for the boss to prod them.

If you need help with grammar, our guide to  grammar and syntax  is a good start to learning more. We also recommend taking the time to  improve the readability score  of your essays before publishing or submitting them.

Meet Rachael, the editor at Become a Writer Today. With years of experience in the field, she is passionate about language and dedicated to producing high-quality content that engages and informs readers. When she's not editing or writing, you can find her exploring the great outdoors, finding inspiration for her next project.

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The New York Times

Your money | students and money, in their own words.

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Your Money | Your Money

Students and money, in their own words.

Compiled by RON LIEBER MAY 21, 2015

Each year, we put out a call for college application essays about money, work and social class. This year, we picked seven -- about pizza, parental sacrifice, prep school students, discrimination and deprivation.

North Bergen, N.J.

High school, st. peter's preparatory school, college plans, columbia university.

Getting dressed each morning for school, I slip on my blazer, tighten my leather Oxfords, and pick a pair of glasses that match my outfit. Just a block away from my house, my town's high school is a two-minute walk to my left. However, I turn right and begin my hour-long commute to St. Peter's Prep. On my way to the bus stop, I always run into my childhood friends as we go in different directions. I wonder, “Why is my life so different from theirs? Do they think I'm pretentious, going to a prep school?” I don't live in a dystopian town where gunshots go off every day. However, many of my friends just don't care about school and use alcohol, drugs or sex to escape from their socioeconomic realities; the majority of my town is low-income and Latino.

I continue walking to the bus stop and run into a friend who went to my elementary school. "Those red pants make you look like one of those jerks from Prep, bruh. I work the register at a bank and I don't even wear that crap," he says while laughing in a sincere manner. He shakes my hand the same way we have since the second grade; we both smile at the fact that the gesture is alive after all these years.

Arriving at my high school, my favorite priest sketches the trinity on my torso and mentions something he wants me to do with the blessing of God that day: ace a test, inspire the freshmen with a motivational speech or simply be happy. Feeling loved, I move on to ethics class and analyze how the cycle of socialization comes into play with the same community I just tutored a weekend ago, Brooklyn Jesuit Prep. In my science class, I discuss how global warming relates to the research trip I recently attended in Alaska with my teacher.

To enjoy the weekend, I go to a football game between Prep and my neighborhood. During a play, my prep friends chant, “That's alright, that’s okay, you'll be working for us someday.” Having deep bonds of friendship on both sides, I'm shocked at the thoughtlessness of my classmates. Part of me feels ostracized, but another part of me wants to fix things; I fiercely lecture them on how wrong they are about my home. With my neighborhood friends, part of me wants to ignore what the football fans had to say, but a subtle fear that they may be right grows in my heart. I am moved and start tutoring my neighborhood friends with my used test-preparation books and showing them the social skills I learned from Dale Carnegie. I also start sharing books on body language and charisma, fascinating guides to lucid dreaming, and my favorite thrillers from Stephen King. I do this simply because it's what friends do. While I see college as an opportunity, many of my neighborhood friends see it as an obstacle keeping them from a paying job. I am trying to help this handful of friends realize that studying, reading, and learning can be rewarding.

Living two blocks away from me, my best friend, Eduardo, attends public school and wants to become a United States Marshal. Working out four hours every day and taking classes like public speaking, law and American literature, everything he does revolves around his goal. People like Eduardo give me hope among the football fans' chanting and make the fear in my heart subside.

The two worlds that comprise my being constantly play tug of war in my mind. My parents came from poverty in Ecuador, so I was raised believing that hard work and education can take you anywhere. Whether that work is in the classroom, at the gym or networking at a business event, persistence is what fosters success. Not your race. Not your native language. Not your ZIP code.

Red Bluff, Calif.

High school, red bluff high school, college plans.

For years, I’ve reflected on what qualities enable people to overcome adversity. I believe my journey exemplifies that one answer is a synthesis of initiative and resilience. From foster care, to a broken home, to military service, to two tours of duty in the Middle East, initiative and resilience have steered me to where I am today.

I was born into poverty to an immigrant mother. When I was 2, my mother’s drug addiction caused me to be placed into the Los Angeles County foster care system. I lived in seven different homes over the next five years. Some homes had more than 10 foster children living in them. The families were of many ethnic backgrounds; I was compelled to develop social skills to receive care from distracted foster parents. I was a curious boy and enjoyed interacting with the people around me.

At age 7, I was adopted by a married couple and their daughter. I enjoyed calling my new parents “mom” and “dad” and saying “I have a sister.” As a boy who hadn’t had a family, it made me happy to finally be a part of one.

Two years later, my parents revealed they were ending their marriage. This was crushing. I observed as my parents argued and noticed they often mentioned my adoption. I found a sanctuary to escape: the school library. There I read Encyclopedia Brown and other favorites. My adoptive mother was granted custody of me; consequently my adoptive father severed ties with me because he knew it would hurt my mother. I was heartbroken and curious why a dispute with my mother resulted in my father not speaking to me. I asked adult relatives and they’d skirt the question. There was one adult who was truthful.

She was a coworker of my mother’s named Shelly. She related that when adults are hurt, they can behave irresponsibly. I was grateful for her honesty and we became close. My mother soon entered a relationship with her. As a young boy, I was puzzled that my mother could now be in a relationship with Shelly. My mother explained that in our society young gay people are often socialized into believing they’re heterosexual and then, as adults, embrace their attraction to the same sex. This blew my 9-year-old mind and intensified my interest in the complexities of human behavior. My mother and her partner Shelly raised me into adolescence.

Shelly was shot when I was 14. I was terrified that she wouldn’t survive; I felt great affection for her. I was rejected by other parental figures, yet Shelly chose to help care for me. She survived after extensive surgery and received an insurance settlement which she and my mother used to buy a home. One year later, our home was foreclosed. I’d developed enough resilience to overcome the ordeal and I decided to take initiative.

After graduating high school, I decided to join the military during the Iraq surge in 2007. I understood the risks, and the structured image the Air Force evoked, combined with my desire to serve my country, gave me good reason to enlist.

While military life was demanding, my efforts paid off. A unification of resilience and initiative in an ordered environment has led me to success. I’ve accomplished much over the last seven years because the Air Force provides an organized setting that contrasts with the chaos of my upbringing. I developed leadership and collaboration skills by serving abroad alongside people of all backgrounds, from the Middle East to Europe. Moreover, I achieved fluency in another language, learned more about the human experience and gained awareness of my own potential.

My aim is to become a psychologist and further explore the themes of resilience and initiative to assist people who’ve endured traumatic situations. My trials as a youth along with my military service have inspired me to help others overcome adversity.

Rob has some college credit from correspondence courses, and he’s considered a transfer applicant. He is still waiting to hear from some colleges.

Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts

Kenyon college.

I have no pre-choir memories.

If it were not for my involvement in the choir, I would never have discovered my talent and love for singing that led me to apply to LaGuardia High School. My vocal training in school has opened up a whole new world of singing to me and has exposed me to others who are passionate and dedicated to their art.

At the age of 4, I began attending choir at St. James Church. My mother decided that joining choir would provide me with musical and religious instruction, in addition to supplying the stories and rituals that are essential to Western civilization, Christianity — whatever that means. I was initially joined by scads of my peers at St. James, making choir a fun, social task, but as I grew older, one by one, my friends began dropping out and I became entirely disenchanted with what I saw as the onerous chore of attending choir. They simply did not want to go anymore and their parents complied.

In addition to the dwindling choristers, Saint James was located on the Upper East Side, one of the fanciest ZIP codes in New York, while I was coming from my school in the pregentrified Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick. While the neighborhood is now known for its gourmet pizzerias and trendy clubs, the Bushwick of my childhood was known for shootings and public housing projects, if it was known at all. This discrepancy between my two lives made me more than a little uncomfortable. While the children at choir proudly donned the telltale signs of their elite education: tartan skirts and navy blazers encrusted with the logos of their private schools whose cost was nearly as much as my mother’s yearly wage, I maintained my own uniform of jeans and a T-shirt. They all knew me as the girl from Brooklyn, the chorister who went to public school.

I begged and pleaded with my mom to let me follow the path of my friends and retire my choir robe, but she persisted, always replying with a curt “no”. She believed that in the long run, going to choir would benefit me both educationally and socially.

As the years went on, I continued to badger my mother on the subject. Her answers began to lessen in severity. She showed compassion toward my dislike of choir and soon replied to my questions of discontinuing my involvement in chorus with answers like “Just do it for one more year” and the even more compassionate, “Are you sure?” Despite my mother’s change of heart, I did not take advantage of her limbo-ed responses, and instead, I began to withdraw my constant requests. In spite of not having many friends in choir, I began to enjoy literally finding my voice every week in church. After years in choir, I let my voice become free and discovered that it was loud and powerful. It could be used to lead others in song. When I was younger, I had always followed the older, more experienced singers. I would wait for the right pitch, or follow the pros to figure out when to come in, but little by little, letting go of my reticence, I began to trust myself: starting the pitch and coming in when I knew we were supposed to sing. Eventually, other singers began to follow my lead. Parishioners started to acknowledge me for my voice rather than my address. I began to appreciate this music that I had heard throughout my youth, yet had always dismissed as boring and religious. Soon enough, my habitual complaints about choir completely stopped.

After being in the choir for nearly a decade, I was awarded the position of head chorister, which served as an affirmation of my musical abilities, since I was now expected to lead the younger choristers. The position of head chorister motivated me into applying to the highly competitive and prestigious LaGuardia High School.

Although I initially detested choir, I have come to love it, and more than that, it has become an intrinsic part of me. Choir allowed me to not only grow as a singer, but also as a person. Through choir, I learned that if you continue with something long enough, you will receive some sort of benefit from it and maybe even grow to love it. Because of choir I found my voice in a small church. Because of choir, I am willing to go wherever life takes me with an open mind, knowing that the effects of even the smallest things can be completely life-altering. As a song that I learned in choir and auditioned with for LaGuardia says: “Oh God, my heart is ready.”

Latin School of Chicago

Northwestern university.

With fingers long and elegant, and nails always red, my mother’s hands once held the magic power to soothe my woes. As a child these hands wiped my tears and pulled me close enough to her to smell her motherly scent — a mixture of Nivea lotion and achiote , evidence that she had spent her morning in the kitchen. Years later, these same hands incited my tears.

In Ecuador, my mother was invincible, but upon our arrival to the United States she became a shell of what she once was. I had grown accustomed to seeing her youthful hands well manicured, but melancholy and hours of hard labor had silently taken over them in a matter of months. Blisters and dark spots invaded her smooth brown skin, while thick and stubborn blue and green veins crept up from the backs of her hands to the tips of her fingers.

Fatigue and two jobs had ruined who both my parents used to be, and I began to value the little time I had with my mother more than ever before. This little time could not make up for the time I spent alone, however, nor could it assuage the envy I had of the little girl my mother looked after. She, though not my mother’s daughter, had the privilege of having my mother and her delicious cooking all to herself; I would always get the leftovers. She also had the privilege of having my mother pin her silky blond hair into a pretty bun before ballet classes while my dad wrestled with the hairbrush to pull my thick brown hair into two lopsided ponytails before dropping me off at the bus stop. But I couldn’t blame the girl for depriving me of my mother; her parents had also been consumed by their jobs.

My mother’s hands caressed me less and less, and by the age of 12 I had become nearly indifferent to her cold and rare touch. My family had turned into a group of strangers that happened to be living under the same roof while chasing the American Dream.

At 4 a.m. on May 3, 2009, I woke to a soft and unfamiliar cry. Scared and confused, I put on my slippers and tiptoed to my parents’ room.There, in the moonlit darkness, I found my mother, the woman of iron, once again defeated. Phone by her side, fists clenched, curled up like a child, she sobbed uncontrollably. I did not need an explanation; I knew right away that my abuelita had passed away. I pulled my mother close to my chest and wiped away her tears. And for the first time in several years, I uttered the words le quiero mucho Mami (I love you, Mom). She looked up at me with her big, brown, tear-filled eyes, and whispered, y yo a tí (I do, too). The distance that had silently emerged between us since we left Ecuador was suddenly erased. I had become my mother’s protector, as she had once been for her mother. I held her callused hands between my own and realized that despite their smoothness, my hands were not much different from hers.

Centreville, Va.

Westfield high school, georgetown university.

"Just another illegal looking for a job," the chubby cashier whispers to his coworker as my dad and I walk out of the convenience store. We had just driven up to buy lunch, and my dad was delighted to see a "Help Wanted" sign.

"Mi hija, por favor pregunta si puedo aplicar" he eagerly pleads to me. Despite my hesitations of seeing an army of white-faced workers, I reluctantly agreed to ask the chubby cashier for an application. The cashier, whose name tag said Dave, informed us that the first part of the application was a verbal interview. Dave would ask the questions, and my dad would do his best to respond. His English was broken and he frequently looked to me for translating. After a few questions Dave concluded the interview and looked over to me,

"Listen, girl. He's over 60 and speaks no English. There is no way we would hire him." His tone was rude, but I sadly understood why my dad wasn't hired. I faced my hopeful dad and watched his smile drop as I told him that Dave just remembered that they hired someone yesterday and that they really couldn't afford to hire anyone else. My dad was disappointed, but nonetheless he graciously shook Dave's hand and thanked him for his time.

Job searching is difficult for everyone, but in a world full of Daves, it's almost impossible. Daves are people who look at my family and immediately think less of us. They think illegal, poor and uneducated. Daves never allow my dad to pass the first round of job applications. Daves watch like hawks as my brother and I enter stores. Daves inconsiderately correct my mother's grammar. Because there are Daves in the world, I have become a protector for my family. I excuse their behavior as just being a "typical American." I convince my mother that they are only staring at her lovely new purse. I convince my dad they are only shouting about store sales to us. Aside from being a protector, I am also an advocate. As an advocate, I make sure my family is never taken advantage of. I am always looking out for scams and discrepancies. I am the one asking the questions when we buy or sell a car. I make sure all details are discussed and no specifics are left unanswered.

I have been committed to helping my parents since I was 8 years old. Although I didn't always enjoy acting like a mini-adult, I was always delighted to see my parents smile when I finished a task. I quickly came to a conclusion that I liked making other people happy. It felt good to do something for others that they couldn't do for themselves. My parents never shielded me from reality. I was very aware of their past struggles with poverty and I knew how lucky I was to have food on the table, a roof over my head and a school to attend, and after years of helping just my parents, I decided to expand my clientele: I began volunteering.

I have volunteered at soup kitchens, retirement homes, public libraries and parks. I have worked with inspiring leaders, traveled to unique locations and met with engaging people of all ages. I quickly developed a love for both service and my community, and after eight years the love still flourishes.

I am excited to widen my impact and hope to pursue a career in either public service, politics or diplomacy. I am so grateful for all the support I have received. From caring public school teachers to subsidized lunches, the United States has put me on a path to success. Undoubtedly this path wasn't always paved, but rugged and relentless feet have carried me along.

Adamsville, Ala.

High school, alabama school of fine arts, college plans, wesleyan university.

Once, when I worked at Domino’s, a mechanic jokingly asked me if I could put his order under the name Bill Gates. I told him yes, because why not? Why should a black mechanic who worked day after day for minimum wage not enjoy a few minutes as a millionaire? Whenever I donned my black visor and navy blue polo, customers didn’t see an art school feminist who loved banned books, French films and protest songs. I was a face, a face who took orders and tossed pizzas. I could have been anyone.

My favorite thing about working at Domino’s was interacting with the assortment of people that pizza unified. I felt so anonymous in uniform, confident enough to answer phones and talk to strangers. Eiad, our pizza chef from Pakistan, resembled Bob Dylan and sang folk songs from his homeland when business was smooth. One of the other insiders played guitar, managed a costume shop and once welded a statue for Marvel Enterprises in New York. Teenagers came in, grass-stained and sweaty, immediately after soccer practice. Men in flannel with babies in their arms and two kids trailing behind them allowed their children to choose what to order. Elderly women in floppy sunhats and fake pearls would call before Bible school and ask for 20 large cheese pizzas to satisfy everyone.

Domino’s was like an Island of Misfit Toys floating in the middle of Alabama. My coworkers all joked about each other for what made us different: Richard was a walking Star Wars database, Mike was O.C.D. when it came to stacking pizza boxes, I was a vegetarian who often had to package the meat. Kristen, now 40, had worked at pizzerias since she was 14 and was currently filing applications to enroll in college. Terry preached to a small congregation when he wasn’t delivering.

Ever since I moved here, I’ve felt like an outsider in my community. I live for the arts while my town prioritizes football and fishing. The general population is Caucasian, Christian, Republican, anti-gay, and pro-guns — or so I thought. At Domino’s, three of my coworkers fasted for Ramadan, one of the drivers read novels while waiting for deliveries and both of my bosses were women. The people who came in were far from homogenous, as diverse as the pizzas they ordered: Caucasian, Asian, African-American, and Mexican lawyers, firemen, construction workers, stay-at-home mothers, house painters. Many were married, some were divorced and some were single. Many had kids. Many were still kids. I couldn’t help but admire them. They made enduring irate customers, drunken phone calls and crying children worth minimum wage. All were just ordinary people trying to build lives in America. All were united and equivalent when in need of pizza.

Great Neck, N.Y.

Great neck south high school, university of chicago.

Weekends growing up were spent hitting tennis balls with my coach, sketching still lives at a local art studio and practicing the violin with my private teacher. My parents endorsed my interests because we had financial security that most families in America didn't. I'm thankful that this wealth also allows me to live in one of the most affluent suburbs of New York and attend one of its best public schools, where it's not uncommon to see my peers driving to school in a Mercedes-Benz.

Even though I can buy glamorous things because of my family's wealth, I've never felt comfortable spending it. Some girls in my school frivolously spend their money – at the local Abercrombie, they'll point to a shirt they like and swipe their cards without batting an eyelash at the price. I use my money differently because of how I was raised. I make a beeline to the discount sections at higher-end retailers to find trendy garments and resell them on eBay to make a profit covering next semester's art supplies.

Many of my peers were fed since birth with a silver spoon, not giving a second thought to the family wealth at their disposal. I like to think I use my spoon sparingly, feeding myself only when necessary. I dislike spending my parents' money because I didn't earn any of it. I appreciate my parents endorsing my interests like violin because these hobbies are enriching, but I'm discomfited when they pay for superficial things like name-brand clothing. I'm fine just wearing thrifted shirts and discounted sneakers. I suppose it's because my mother raised me to embody a Chinese proverb that translates to "save when financially stable because the future is unknown."

At a young age, I was forced to understand what came at the price of that wealth: time with my father. When I was 8, he left to build his own canned fruits company in China. That was the first year a seat at the dinner table remained empty and a car in the garage sat untouched. Suddenly, our relationship became two five-minute phone calls per week. He'll see my brother and me only for a quarter of the year – just the equivalent of a season spent together. He couldn't come to my brother's high school graduation, and during school orchestra concerts I would take a hopeful glance at the audience to see only my mother's face in the crowd. However, he’s the reason I have a silver spoon that allows me to scoop more than just canned peaches. If he hadn't followed his ambitions, we would still be a close-knit family living in a smaller home, but maybe then thrift shopping would be mandatory instead of voluntary.

My love and appreciation for my father makes me honor the money he provides me with – every dollar comes at the expense of his physical distance. When my father comes to visit, he offers to buy me the newest iPhone or drive me to Bloomingdale's because of the guilt he feels for not being with us. I accept his offer sparingly because I don't want him to think of me as someone who asks for more than what I need. While everyone in school has been toting the newest iPhone since ninth grade, I took his used phone, giving up 24/7 Internet access – I didn't need to check Facebook every minute. Although I enjoy the security afforded me by his success, it doesn't diminish my determination to build a future with my own bare hands. When I leave the silver spoon too long in my mouth, I feel this nagging itch telling me to remove it, as if I'm allergic to silver. If the spoon's used sparingly, I can avoid an outbreak. But I don't mind my allergy. I embrace it because it reminds me that everything comes at a price – even silver spoons.

Essays About Work and Class That Caught a College’s Eye

Four Stand-Out College Essays About Money

Thrift Store Shame, Then Pride

An Update on 4 Students After a College Year

A thesis workout schedule

A conversation with my sister on the tram tonight got me thinking about the similarity between doing a thesis and an exercise program.

I was trying (as I usually do) to convince said sister that she should do a PhD. During my rant she just sat there with that patient look that she gets when I start in on the topic. When I finished she told me I was selling it well, but she remembered me doing it. All she saw was how  stressed out I was during the ordeal and looked terrible I looked when it was over. She pointed out it had taken me well over a year to recover.

I acknowledged this was probably true, but that I had bounced back better than ever. What had that year given me? Recovery time .

Apparently when we exercise we need to build in recovery time for the body to repair the damage done during the training session. After intense exercise it is actually the recovery time which enables our bodies to do the work which makes us fitter. In fact recovery time is so important that Lance Armstrong’s trainer, Chris Carmichael, became quite famous by designing a maximum efficiency training schedule which featured clever use of recovery time.

I have reworked 4 key points of Carmichael’s training scheme for the Lance, thesis style:

1) Motivation. We all know you have to have plenty of it to finish a PhD. We can think about motivation being intrinsic (coming from within us) and extrinsic (coming from those around us). Which one is more important to you? How might you use this insight to increase your motivation? If you are extrinsically motivated you might tell others you are going to finish a chapter by a certain date to keep you honest. If you are intrinsically motivated, promise yourself some reward for finishing a certain amount of work – but make the amount achievable and the reward small so that you don’t give up before completing it, i.e. “When I have written this 1000 words I will take a break for coffee with a friend”.

2) Singularity of focus. Not all of us have the luxury of full time study, but even for those who do it can be hard to stay focused. One big problem is ‘yak shaving’ – doing lots of other seemingly useful tasks to avoid the big difficult one. This often manifests in obsessive compulsive article collecting . There are so many interesting, but tangential,  papers out there and they can be a great way to avoid reading the boring but necessary ones. A  practical solution one student shared with me was to sort papers into 2 piles: those which are directly on topic and those which are interesting for other reasons. Simply read two from the ‘on topic’ pile before you think about reading one from the interesting pile. This way you are not denying yourself the pleasure and potential benefit of diversion, while keeping it under control.

3) Efficiency. Lance Armstrong didn’t spend the whole day training. By training hard, but allowing time to recover he built his stamina and strength. Sitting and staring at the screen when you are having a bad thesis day can be tempting because it provides you with a comfortable illusion of work. But it isn’t efficient – there are always library books to return and laundry to be done and it is probably a better use of your time right now. But the key to efficiency, Lance Armstrong style, is to go hard before you rest . Free writing can be a good exercise to do before leaving the desk for a break. Try writing for 10 straight minutes about what is bothering you about your work – without stopping. Let the writing be sloppy – even work by hand if that helps. Don’t worry about sentence construction and elegant words. Let your hand lead your brain for awhile and see what happens. You might find this is enough to get you over the mini slump – if not, go and do the laundry.

4. Periodical task setting: Writing a thesis happens in fits and starts. It cannot roll out of you in a steady stream because you are not a power station. Doing a thesis is more like cooking or child raising : ongoing, creative and not entirely predictable. There are times when other things are happening in your life which affect your ability to work. A big week of marking undergraduate work would always throw me off. I learnt that there was no point to even try to write – or even read – while the crunch was on. But I still made sure I had a stock of routine tasks – filing, image cleaning, copy editing – which could be done without too much thinking during this period.

There you have it – a thesis work out program fit for the tour de France 🙂

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The Thesis Whisperer is written by Professor Inger Mewburn, director of researcher development at The Australian National University . New posts on the first Wednesday of the month. Subscribe by email below. Visit the About page to find out more about me, my podcasts and books. I'm on most social media platforms as @thesiswhisperer. The best places to talk to me are LinkedIn , Mastodon and Threads.

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Tips for Writing an Effective Application Essay

How to Write an Effective Essay

Writing an essay for college admission gives you a chance to use your authentic voice and show your personality. It's an excellent opportunity to personalize your application beyond your academic credentials, and a well-written essay can have a positive influence come decision time.

Want to know how to draft an essay for your college application ? Here are some tips to keep in mind when writing.

Tips for Essay Writing

A typical college application essay, also known as a personal statement, is 400-600 words. Although that may seem short, writing about yourself can be challenging. It's not something you want to rush or put off at the last moment. Think of it as a critical piece of the application process. Follow these tips to write an impactful essay that can work in your favor.

1. Start Early.

Few people write well under pressure. Try to complete your first draft a few weeks before you have to turn it in. Many advisers recommend starting as early as the summer before your senior year in high school. That way, you have ample time to think about the prompt and craft the best personal statement possible.

You don't have to work on your essay every day, but you'll want to give yourself time to revise and edit. You may discover that you want to change your topic or think of a better way to frame it. Either way, the sooner you start, the better.

2. Understand the Prompt and Instructions.

Before you begin the writing process, take time to understand what the college wants from you. The worst thing you can do is skim through the instructions and submit a piece that doesn't even fit the bare minimum requirements or address the essay topic. Look at the prompt, consider the required word count, and note any unique details each school wants.

3. Create a Strong Opener.

Students seeking help for their application essays often have trouble getting things started. It's a challenging writing process. Finding the right words to start can be the hardest part.

Spending more time working on your opener is always a good idea. The opening sentence sets the stage for the rest of your piece. The introductory paragraph is what piques the interest of the reader, and it can immediately set your essay apart from the others.

4. Stay on Topic.

One of the most important things to remember is to keep to the essay topic. If you're applying to 10 or more colleges, it's easy to veer off course with so many application essays.

A common mistake many students make is trying to fit previously written essays into the mold of another college's requirements. This seems like a time-saving way to avoid writing new pieces entirely, but it often backfires. The result is usually a final piece that's generic, unfocused, or confusing. Always write a new essay for every application, no matter how long it takes.

5. Think About Your Response.

Don't try to guess what the admissions officials want to read. Your essay will be easier to write─and more exciting to read─if you’re genuinely enthusiastic about your subject. Here’s an example: If all your friends are writing application essays about covid-19, it may be a good idea to avoid that topic, unless during the pandemic you had a vivid, life-changing experience you're burning to share. Whatever topic you choose, avoid canned responses. Be creative.

6. Focus on You.

Essay prompts typically give you plenty of latitude, but panel members expect you to focus on a subject that is personal (although not overly intimate) and particular to you. Admissions counselors say the best essays help them learn something about the candidate that they would never know from reading the rest of the application.

7. Stay True to Your Voice.

Use your usual vocabulary. Avoid fancy language you wouldn't use in real life. Imagine yourself reading this essay aloud to a classroom full of people who have never met you. Keep a confident tone. Be wary of words and phrases that undercut that tone.

8. Be Specific and Factual.

Capitalize on real-life experiences. Your essay may give you the time and space to explain why a particular achievement meant so much to you. But resist the urge to exaggerate and embellish. Admissions counselors read thousands of essays each year. They can easily spot a fake.

9. Edit and Proofread.

When you finish the final draft, run it through the spell checker on your computer. Then don’t read your essay for a few days. You'll be more apt to spot typos and awkward grammar when you reread it. After that, ask a teacher, parent, or college student (preferably an English or communications major) to give it a quick read. While you're at it, double-check your word count.

Writing essays for college admission can be daunting, but it doesn't have to be. A well-crafted essay could be the deciding factor─in your favor. Keep these tips in mind, and you'll have no problem creating memorable pieces for every application.

What is the format of a college application essay?

Generally, essays for college admission follow a simple format that includes an opening paragraph, a lengthier body section, and a closing paragraph. You don't need to include a title, which will only take up extra space. Keep in mind that the exact format can vary from one college application to the next. Read the instructions and prompt for more guidance.

Most online applications will include a text box for your essay. If you're attaching it as a document, however, be sure to use a standard, 12-point font and use 1.5-spaced or double-spaced lines, unless the application specifies different font and spacing.

How do you start an essay?

The goal here is to use an attention grabber. Think of it as a way to reel the reader in and interest an admissions officer in what you have to say. There's no trick on how to start a college application essay. The best way you can approach this task is to flex your creative muscles and think outside the box.

You can start with openers such as relevant quotes, exciting anecdotes, or questions. Either way, the first sentence should be unique and intrigue the reader.

What should an essay include?

Every application essay you write should include details about yourself and past experiences. It's another opportunity to make yourself look like a fantastic applicant. Leverage your experiences. Tell a riveting story that fulfills the prompt.

What shouldn’t be included in an essay?

When writing a college application essay, it's usually best to avoid overly personal details and controversial topics. Although these topics might make for an intriguing essay, they can be tricky to express well. If you’re unsure if a topic is appropriate for your essay, check with your school counselor. An essay for college admission shouldn't include a list of achievements or academic accolades either. Your essay isn’t meant to be a rehashing of information the admissions panel can find elsewhere in your application.

How can you make your essay personal and interesting?

The best way to make your essay interesting is to write about something genuinely important to you. That could be an experience that changed your life or a valuable lesson that had an enormous impact on you. Whatever the case, speak from the heart, and be honest.

Is it OK to discuss mental health in an essay?

Mental health struggles can create challenges you must overcome during your education and could be an opportunity for you to show how you’ve handled challenges and overcome obstacles. If you’re considering writing your essay for college admission on this topic, consider talking to your school counselor or with an English teacher on how to frame the essay.

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