Grant: Doctoral: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

The transition to motherhood is typically associated with substantial decreases in physical activity levels. New parents are also at an increased risk of compromised psychological well-being. Since moderate-to-vigorous physical activity reduces symptoms of depression in new mothers, increasing physical activity levels has the added benefit of promoting psychological well-being. This study proposes to test the long-term effectiveness of implementing a novel physical activity intervention for new mothers that is designed to increase their physical activity levels and psychological well-being. Specifically, this study will evaluate the effectiveness of a mental contrasting strategy, which involves having new mothers focus on the best outcome of achieving future physical activity goals, while also identifying their biggest potential barrier that may prevent them from achieving these goals. Since the enjoyable aspects of physical activity have been found to be more motivating than the long-term health benefits, the proposed interventions will focus on the former. It is expected that the goal setting intervention targeting participants' perceptions of enjoyment will result in increased health-enhancing physical activity levels among new mothers six months and one-year following the intervention, compared to an intervention focusing on health benefits or an intervention that focuses on neither enjoyment nor health benefits. Further, it is hypothesised that these increased physical activity levels will result in improvements to participants' psychological well-being. The results of this study have the potential to inform scalable interventions for new Canadian mothers.