Table 2 Potential strategies to inform development of programs aiming to address motivator and barrier themes to healthy eating and physical activity

Motivators for healthy eating

Physical Health

•Emphasise both proximal (e.g. improved energy levels) and distal health benefits (e.g. prevention of chronic diseases) of healthy eating in program messaging and recruitment strategies.

Sport or performance

•Nutrition educators to inform of ways in which certain foods and healthy eating can improve sporting performance and work related activity.

•Provide daily meal plans of their sporting role models and how this contributes to different areas of performance (e.g. healthy foods to consume pre-workout or healthy foods to help with recovery)

Physical appearance

•Recruitment strategies and messaging to focus on ways the program can improve appearance e.g. to improve muscle mass.

Social influences

•Target social groups/circles and have group-based sessions

•Tailor recruitment strategies to social groups e.g. “bring-a-mate”

Motivators for physical activity

Physical appearance

•Recruitment strategies to focus on ways program can improve appearance e.g. improve muscle mass

Social inclusion

•Target social groups/ circles and have group-based sessions

Physical and mental health

•Emphasise both proximal and distal benefits of physical activity in program messaging and recruitment strategies.

•Recruitment strategies and program messaging to focus on mental health benefits of physical activity e.g. decrease stress and ‘feel better’

Sport or performance

•Self-monitoring tools to determine progress of sporting skills (e.g. fitness and fat free mass)

•Include a mixture of different sports to enable mastery of many different physical skills

Barriers to healthy eating

Intrinsic

•Nutrition educators to offer guidance to cook quick, easy and nutritious recipes.

Logistic

•Nutrition educators to offer guidance for eating healthy on a budget

•Intervention facilitators and young men to work together to make meaningful changes to the environment (e.g. targeting young male households)

•Educate young men on how and where to access healthy foods (e.g. supermarket tour)

Social factors

•De-emphasise the masculine stereotypes e.g. focus on male role models such as sporting idols who eat healthily

Barriers to physical activity

Busy lifestyles

•Flexibility in intervention delivery mode: for example, intervention sessions could be face-to-face but also video recorded to allow young men to attend in-person or relay the video recording at a time most convenient for them

Logistic

•Increased access to fitness facilities (e.g. improve knowledge of outdoor workout equipment ) or home-based fitness equipment

•Promote exercise that does not need equipment

Cognitive-emotional

•Intervention facilitators to provide young men with encouragement and positive reinforcement.

Social factors

•Target social groups/ circles and have group-based sessions