Perceptions of health club exercise among middle-aged women

The goal of this Master’s Thesis is to investigate the typical perceptions of health club exercise among middle-aged women. This study is conducted for a Finnish health club Viva Wellness Club due to their interest to examine the perceived barriers of middle-aged women to exercise at their health club. In addition, the behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs, motivation and facilitating factors concerning health club exercise are studied. The social aspect of health clubs as social environments is taken into account. The study is conducted qualitatively with semi-structured interviews Eight customers from Viva Wellness Club are interviewed. The findings revealed that the consumers perceived health club exercise as important, effective, diverse and convenient. Despite the fact that some differences were found, the perceptions about exercise in general concurred with the contestants’ perceptions about health club exercise. The perceived barriers to health club exercise encompassed lack of time, tiredness, health restrictions, weather, family commitments and feelings of embarrassment about one’s appearance and condition.

Functional, Social and Emotional Values as Determinants of Environmentally Responsible Media Consumption

The primary purpose of this research is to develop an enhanced understanding of how consumption values influence environmentally responsible consumption of print and digital media. Theoretical elaboration considers the associations of functional, social and emotional consumption values, green consumer segmentation and media consumption. Additionally, the purpose is to identify consumer perceptions of print and digital media’s environmental responsibility. Empirical analysis was based on qualitative interviews with a sample of 20 Finnish consumers categorized in two segments: young adults and middle aged consumers. Primary data collection was conducted through individual, semi-structured interviews. To analyze the respondents’ approach on the topic, the interviews disclosed themes of media consumption, perceived environmental friendliness of media, norms of behavior and consumers’ general consumption patterns. The results implicate functional value dominated the consumption decision-making process both in a general level and in media consumption. In addition to functional value, environmental responsibility does provide consumers with both emotional and social values. Analysis on perceived environmental responsibility of media demonstrated consumers generally perceive digital media as an environmentally responsible alternative because it does not create physical paper waste. Nevertheless, the perceptions of environmental responsibility and media consumption patterns lacked a consistent connection. Though, both theory and empirical results indicated an average consumer lacks a comprehensive understanding of digital and print media’s life-cycle and hence their environmental advantages and disadvantages.