Perceived Benefits and Barriers in the Mediation of Exercise Differences in Older Black Women with and Without Obesity

Objectives: Weight control is an exercise benefit, important for older Black women, a group experiencing obesity disparities. We compared perceived exercise benefits and barriers between Black women with and without obesity and determined which mediated the weight group-exercise relationship. Methods: A survey (n = 234) was administered to determine attitudinal agreement between weight groups (obese or non-obese). Multiple mediation analysis was used to investigate if attitudes mediated the weight group-exercise relationship. Results: High agreement with all exercise benefits was observed between women with and without obesity. Compared with women without obesity, women with obesity were more likely to report the barriers of only exercising to lose weight (OR = 2.52, 95% CI 1.40–4.55), lack of will power (OR = 1.82, 95% CI 1.05–3.19), weight (OR = 3.04, 95% CI 1.34–6.83), and cost (OR = 2.14, 95% CI 1.02–4.47). Exercising to lose weight and lack of will power mediated the weight group-exercise relationship. Conclusions: Women largely agreed on the exercise benefits. Lack of will power and engaging in exercise only for weight loss were barriers that were more common among older Black women with obesity. The barriers partially explained the lower exercise engagement in women with obesity. Future work may address these barriers to increase exercise in older Black women.