Self-control failures and physical inactivity: Measuring, understanding and intervening

The high population prevalence of physical inactivity is one of today’s biggest public health concerns. This thesis focuses on self-control failures that lead to physical inactivity. Economists generally think of self-control failures as manifesting themselves in time inconsistency. This is where an individual has a preference, or makes a plan, to do more physical activity in the future, but then fails to follow through on that preference or plan. An important and surprising finding from the thesis is that, while many people are time inconsistent by doing less physical activity than they had preferred or planned beforehand, an even greater number do more physical activity than they had preferred or planned. Another important and surprising finding is that factors that influence automatic psychological processes may be more important in explaining time inconsistency than present bias, the most popular explanation in economics. These findings have important implications for the design of policies and interventions to increase physical activity.