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Exploring human behavior change in equine welfare: Insights from a COM-B analysis of the UK's equine obesity epidemic

While equine obesity is understood by equine professionals to be a serious and widespread welfare problem, thus far approaches to reducing the prevalence of obesity in the UK's leisure horses have mainly been limited to educating owners about the dangers of obesity in their horses. In human hea...

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Autores principales: Furtado, Tamzin, Perkins, Elizabeth, Pinchbeck, Gina, McGowan, Catherine, Watkins, Francine, Christley, Rob
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9681534/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36425120
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.961537
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author Furtado, Tamzin
Perkins, Elizabeth
Pinchbeck, Gina
McGowan, Catherine
Watkins, Francine
Christley, Rob
author_facet Furtado, Tamzin
Perkins, Elizabeth
Pinchbeck, Gina
McGowan, Catherine
Watkins, Francine
Christley, Rob
author_sort Furtado, Tamzin
collection PubMed
description While equine obesity is understood by equine professionals to be a serious and widespread welfare problem, thus far approaches to reducing the prevalence of obesity in the UK's leisure horses have mainly been limited to educating owners about the dangers of obesity in their horses. In human health, approaches to behavior change encourage holistic thinking around human behavior, recognizing the importance of the connection between the individuals' knowledge, attitudes, habits, and the social and physical environments. This study used qualitative data from interviews with horse owners and professionals, open-access discussion fora and focus groups in order to collate extensive information about the factors shaping the UK's equine obesity crisis. The data were initially analyzed using a grounded theory method to determine the common themes, and were then analyzed using the COM-B model of behavior change, in order to identify areas where human behavior change might be better supported. The analysis highlighted the importance of a holistic approach to behavior change, since all areas of the COM-B were important in limiting owners' recognition of, and response to, equine obesity. For example, environments and social norms limited the likelihood of owners proactively managing horse weight, and owners also found it difficult to identify overweight horses, and evaluate the risks of long-term health issues as a result of weight, with short-term negative impacts of weight management. While interventions often aim to educate owners into changing their behavior, this analysis highlights the importance of creative and holistic approaches which work alongside the owners' motivations, while shaping the social and physical environments.
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spelling pubmed-96815342022-11-23 Exploring human behavior change in equine welfare: Insights from a COM-B analysis of the UK's equine obesity epidemic Furtado, Tamzin Perkins, Elizabeth Pinchbeck, Gina McGowan, Catherine Watkins, Francine Christley, Rob Front Vet Sci Veterinary Science While equine obesity is understood by equine professionals to be a serious and widespread welfare problem, thus far approaches to reducing the prevalence of obesity in the UK's leisure horses have mainly been limited to educating owners about the dangers of obesity in their horses. In human health, approaches to behavior change encourage holistic thinking around human behavior, recognizing the importance of the connection between the individuals' knowledge, attitudes, habits, and the social and physical environments. This study used qualitative data from interviews with horse owners and professionals, open-access discussion fora and focus groups in order to collate extensive information about the factors shaping the UK's equine obesity crisis. The data were initially analyzed using a grounded theory method to determine the common themes, and were then analyzed using the COM-B model of behavior change, in order to identify areas where human behavior change might be better supported. The analysis highlighted the importance of a holistic approach to behavior change, since all areas of the COM-B were important in limiting owners' recognition of, and response to, equine obesity. For example, environments and social norms limited the likelihood of owners proactively managing horse weight, and owners also found it difficult to identify overweight horses, and evaluate the risks of long-term health issues as a result of weight, with short-term negative impacts of weight management. While interventions often aim to educate owners into changing their behavior, this analysis highlights the importance of creative and holistic approaches which work alongside the owners' motivations, while shaping the social and physical environments. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-11-08 /pmc/articles/PMC9681534/ /pubmed/36425120 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.961537 Text en Copyright © 2022 Furtado, Perkins, Pinchbeck, McGowan, Watkins and Christley. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Veterinary Science
Furtado, Tamzin
Perkins, Elizabeth
Pinchbeck, Gina
McGowan, Catherine
Watkins, Francine
Christley, Rob
Exploring human behavior change in equine welfare: Insights from a COM-B analysis of the UK's equine obesity epidemic
title Exploring human behavior change in equine welfare: Insights from a COM-B analysis of the UK's equine obesity epidemic
title_full Exploring human behavior change in equine welfare: Insights from a COM-B analysis of the UK's equine obesity epidemic
title_fullStr Exploring human behavior change in equine welfare: Insights from a COM-B analysis of the UK's equine obesity epidemic
title_full_unstemmed Exploring human behavior change in equine welfare: Insights from a COM-B analysis of the UK's equine obesity epidemic
title_short Exploring human behavior change in equine welfare: Insights from a COM-B analysis of the UK's equine obesity epidemic
title_sort exploring human behavior change in equine welfare: insights from a com-b analysis of the uk's equine obesity epidemic
topic Veterinary Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9681534/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36425120
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.961537
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