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Background: The aim was to pilot an adapted manualised weight management programme for persons with mild-moderate intellectual disabilities affected by overweight or obesity ("Shape Up-LD"). Method: Adults with intellectual disabilities were enrolled in a 6-month trial (3-month active intervention and 3-month follow-up) and were individually randomised to "Shape Up-LD" or a usual care control. Feasibility outcomes included recruitment, retention, initial effectiveness and cost. Results: Fifty people were enrolled. Follow-up rates were 78% at 3 months and 74% at 6 months. At 3 and 6 months, controlling for baseline weight, no difference was observed between groups (3 months: [beta]: -0.34, 95% confidence interval [CI]: -2.38, 1.69, 6 months: [beta]: -0.55, 95%CI -4.34, 3.24). Conclusion: It may be possible to carry out a trial of "Shape Up-LD," although barriers to recruitment, carer engagement and questionnaire completion need to be addressed, alongside refinements to the intervention.

Understanding the influence of habit on health behaviour, or the formation or disruption of health habits over time, requires reliable and valid measures of automaticity. The most used measure, the Self‐Report Behavioural Automaticity Index (SRBAI; derived from the Self‐Report Habit Index [SRHI]), comprises four items, which may be impractical in some research contexts. Responding to demand from fellow researchers, this study sought to identify whether and which single items from the SRBAI adequately detect hypothesised effects of automaticity, via secondary analysis of 16 datasets, incorporating 16,838 participants and seven different behaviours. We assessed construct validity through correlations between each item and the full SRBAI (and where possible, the SRHI) and predictive validity by examining correlations with behaviour. All four single‐item measures independently met construct and predictive validity criteria. We recognise compelling conceptual and methodological arguments regarding why people should not attempt to assess automaticity via a single, self‐report item. However, where circumstances require brief measures, three SRBAI items each offer a credible and practical one‐item measure that can substitute for the SRBAI or SRHI. We recommend one item in particular—'Behaviour X is something I do automatically'—because it tended to most closely replicate the effects of the four‐item SRBAI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Habit change is often seen as key to successful long‐term behaviour change. Making 'good' behaviours habitual—that is, ensuring a behaviour is prompted automatically on exposure to situational cues, based on cue‐response associations learnt through context‐consistent repetition—is portrayed as a mechanism for sustaining such behaviours over time. Conversely, disrupting 'bad' habits is expected to terminate longstanding unwanted actions. Yet, some commentators have suggested that the role of habit in real‐world behaviour and behaviour change has been overstated. Such critiques highlight a gap between habit theory and the reality of human behaviour 'in the wild'. This state‐of‐the‐field review aims to narrow this gap. Building on a core distinction between habit and habitual behaviour, our review seeks to offer interpretations of habit theory and evidence that will better manage intervention designers' expectations regarding how modifying habit can realistically be expected to promote behaviour change. We emphasise that habit is just one potential influence on behaviour at any given moment, and highlight instances in which habit may dominate over intention, and in which intention may dominate over habit, in determining behaviour frequency. We suggest that, while it may assist behaviour maintenance, habit formation may be neither necessary nor sufficient to sustain real‐world behaviour change. We draw attention to the various ways in which habit may be 'broken' (i.e., disrupted), and discern the implications of each habit disruption mechanism for long‐term cessation of unwanted behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]