Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Many Canadians suffer from cancer and thousands more are added to this total each year. Luckily, the medical field is getting better at treating cancer, and as a result the majority of individuals with cancer will be able to survive the disease. However, cancer treatments are usually quite harsh on the body and rarely leave cancer survivors as healthy as they were before being affected by the disease. The future is promising because we now know that exercise can help prevent, manage, or resolve many cancer-related symptoms. Therefore, regular exercise can help survivors regain the levels of health they once experienced before being affected by cancer or even help survivors to get in the best shape of their life. Unfortunately this solution is not that straightforward since people generally don't exercise at all or they have a hard time exercising enough to gain health improvements. Research has discovered many great ways to help make people realize the benefits of exercise and make them want to exercise more, but only half of all individuals who want to exercise actually end up exercising. So there appears to be something else determining whether or not individuals will follow through on their desire to exercise, but we still don't know what these sources of influence are yet. By determining what might influence a large group of cancer survivors who want to exercise to actually become regularly physically active, we may be able to help the many improve their own health. Furthermore, it is important to find ways to intervene on these sources of influence and ultimately make tangible differences on cancer survivors' exercise levels and health. Meeting once per week with cancer survivors who intend on exercising, and providing them with tangible research-based support in guiding their intentions into actual exercise participation, will likely make large differences in the survivors' exercise levels, and thus effectively improve their health.