During the COVID-19 pandemic, people have reduced the frequency of going out, and need to engage in health behaviors at home. Home-based exercise has aroused people's attention. This paper aims to examine the influencing mechanism of health consciousness on home-based exercise during the COVID-19 pandemic. A questionnaire method was used to select 449 Chinese respondents on an online platform; the questionnaire includes a health consciousness scale, health life goal scale, perceived behavioral control scale, and the home-based exercise scale. A T-test was used to conduct differential analysis. The hierarchical regression analysis method was used to examine the relationship between health consciousness and home-based exercise, and the Hayes' SPSS PROCESS macro was used to test mediating effect. The results show that there are significant differences in home-based exercise with respect to gender, age, and marital status. Health consciousness has a significant positive effect on home-based exercise. Perceived behavioral control acts as the mediator between health consciousness and home-based exercise. Health consciousness can influence home-based exercise through health life goals and perceived behavioral control in turn. This paper takes a home-based exercise survey, and expands the theoretical research of home-based exercise. The findings suggest that people should pay attention to promoting the transformation of health consciousness into home-based exercise. It provides enlightenment for people to adopt health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords: COVID-19; health consciousness; health life goal; home-based exercise; perceived behavioral control.