...rather than health concerns. One hundred twenty-six college students reported a number of diet and exercise behaviors after writing about why high-quality diet and exercise promotes health (dissonance-health), or physical appearance (dissonance-appearance); or they wrote about an unrelated topic (control). Risk perceptions related to negative health and appearance consequences emanating from diet and physical activity levels were then assessed. Following this, participants were instructed to indicate whether they intended to change their diet or exercise behaviors, for the better, anytime during the next 6 months. It was found that dissonance did not effect absolute levels of risk perceptions or intentions, but did influence the relationship between risk perceptions and intentions. In particular, there was no correlation in the control group, a negative correlation in the dissonance-appearance group, and a positive correlation in the dissonance-health group. Implications of these findings are discussed.

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Obesity has become an increasingly important public health problem in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2006). Over the last few decades, the percentage of Americans who are clinically overweight has been steadily increasing (National Health Interview Survey, 2004). This trend has filtered into college-aged student populations. According to the American College Health Association's National College Health Assessment (2005), almost 30% of college students are classified as overweight. The high prevalence of overweight among college students can be attributed, in part, to inadequate health behaviors, particularly improper eating and lack of physical activity. Schuette and colleagues (1996) found that only 4% of college students reported eating less than 30% of calories from fat, and 25% of college students participate in no vigorous exercise for at least 20 minutes per week (National College Health Assessment, 2005). Due to a lack of healthy eating and regular exercise, a significant proportion of college students are becoming increasingly susceptible to overweight and obesity (Lowry et al., 2000).

As college students begin to manage their own lives, they are at liberty to regulate their involvement in various health behaviors. Health promotion programs targeted at college students must emphasize the importance of integrating healthy behaviors as routine during these seminal years (Martinelli, 1999). By encouraging college students to adopt healthy diet and physical activity behaviors, public health educators can help to extend the number of years of enhanced quality of life for individuals who might otherwise become predisposed to chronic disease (Fries, 2004). This philosophy becomes all the more practical as medical research indicates that sedentary individuals who eat poorly are much more likely to develop health problems such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and stroke (National Institutes of Health, 2005).

What then is the best way to elicit healthy diet and physical activity behaviors from college students? Most students are not meeting dietary and physical activity guidelines, which suggests a need for prevention interventions and increased understanding of overweight college students (Huang et al., 2003). While balanced diets and innovative exercise regimens provide the means to reduce obesity, these programs generally do not have lasting effects among college student populations (Nicklas et al., 1995; Engstrom, Tobelmann, & Albertson, 1997; American College of Sports Medicine, 2000; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2004). Most interventions of this type focus on endorsing actual behaviors, but few focus on the cognitive barriers preventing healthy diet and physical activity. Attitudes constitute a considerable cognitive barrier limiting adherence to healthy behaviors (Ziebland et al., 1998).

Cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) has been shown to affect attitudes and behavior by creating inconsistent cognitions within individuals (Draycott & Dabbs, 1998). Cognitive inconsistencies have been shown to stimulate individuals to actively attempt altering their behaviors in hopes of attaining consonance between attitude and behavior (Elliot & Devine, 1994). By causing college students to feel cognitive dissonance between their attitudes about diet and physical activity and their own self-reported diet and physical activity behaviors, they may be more likely to reassess their intentions to engage in these health behaviors. Once individuals feel dissonance between their attitudes and behaviors, the arousal they feel may serve as a catalyst for deciding to engage in healthy behaviors (Stone et al., 1994). After encountering cognitive dissonance, individuals may display increased levels of risk and worry regarding their negative health behaviors, which, in turn, could help to influence positive behavioral intentions.

Individuals have been shown to feel the need to reduce any dissonance that they feel between their health attitudes and behaviors, by actively changing their health habits (Leary, Tchividjian, & Kraxberger, 1994). The dissonance that one feels can have a...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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