Experts at St. Olaf: Starting and maintaining health habits
As 2026 begins, approximately half of adults in the United States have a resolution focused on fitness, weight loss, or healthier eating.
St. Olaf College Professor of Kinesiology and Department Chair Charles Fountaine shares insights on how to create and maintain healthy habits.
What is a “healthy habit”?
A habit is simply the association between a cue and an action. Habits are developed as part of a cognitive process in which a contextual cue automatically triggers an impulse to act. Therefore, a habit could be considered “healthy” if the automatic action it triggers consistently contributes to your physical, mental, or social well-being. If an individual wants to start a new healthy behavior, such as being more physically active, the challenge is to form a new habit that gets the action started. In this situation, what trigger(s) in your everyday environment will create the desired automatic response?
Why is January a popular month to begin a new health habit?
The tradition of New Year’s resolutions can be traced all the way back to the time of ancient Romans, who made offerings to the two-faced god Janus, commemorating endings and beginnings — looking back on the past and forward to the future. Ancient demi-gods aside, the beginning of a new calendar year in January acts as a temporal landmark, creating a psychological phenomenon known as the fresh start effect –– associated with increased motivation for change, new goals, or the adoption of new habits. Numerous embedded cultural and social reinforcements all additionally signal January 1 as an opportunity for a new beginning.
What are a few practical tips people should know for maintaining physical, mental, and social well-being?
Many of the recommendations to help build healthy habits are grounded in the science of behavior change. Central to many behavioral change theories is self-efficacy, which is an individual’s confidence to carry out the actions necessary to perform certain behaviors. Self-efficacy can be developed through mastery experiences hallmarked by setting realistic goals that can be achieved. Whereas many individuals may initially gravitate toward long-term goals based on outcomes or results, short-term achievable goals that focus on the process and actions have been shown to be more effective.
What common wellness tips are actually unhelpful?
For those of us in the health and wellness sphere, it can be exhausting to counter what feels like a torrent of misinformation, often propagated by social media. In the spirit of a new year, I will employ the “Principle of Charity,” take a deep breath, and debunk! The common phrase “No pain, no gain –– exercise is only effective if you push yourself toward exhaustion” is false! Exercise does not have to feel like punishment, nor does exercise have to be performed at a high intensity in order to be effective. A much more inclusive message is that some activity is better than none, and to simply move more and sit less throughout the day can make a meaningful difference!
How does your work at St. Olaf support students in building sustainable health habits?
As a professor of kinesiology, I am energized on a daily basis to teach the foundations of exercise science in the classroom and harness the creativity of our students in developing undergraduate research projects to further enhance student learning. As an instructor, it is very rewarding to see St. Olaf students take a topic that we discussed in class and take a deeper dive, developing critical thinking skills and deeper understanding and knowledge through the research process. These skills benefit students not only for their own personal health habits, but also empower them to develop the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to succeed as future professionals in health science careers.
About Charles Fountaine
Professor of Kinesiology and Department Chair Charles Fountaine leads the kinesiology professional program at St. Olaf. This program includes a rich discipline of the health sciences, challenging students to understand why and how various factors limit and enhance a person’s capacities to move. Fountaine’s research expertise and interests include resistance training throughout the lifespan and the cardiovascular and metabolic demands of various forms of exercise and physical activity. He is also a certified exercise physiologist and certified strength and conditioning specialist.
Outside of St. Olaf, he is a fellow with the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), an associate editor for ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal — in which he writes the bimonthly Take Ten column — and was an associate editor and contributor on the 11th Edition of ACSM’s flagship text ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription.