OBJECTIVE: To examine the impact of a pre-bariatric surgery physical activity intervention (PAI), designed to increase bout-related (> 10 min) moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA), on health-related quality of life (HRQoL). METHODS: Analyses included 75 adult participants (86.7% female; BMI 45.0 +/- 6.5 kg/m2) who were randomly assigned to 6 weeks of PAI (n = 40) or standard pre-surgical care (SC; n = 35). PAI received 6 individual weekly counseling sessions to increase walking exercise. Participants wore an objective PA monitor for 7 days and completed the SF-36 Health Survey at baseline and post-intervention to evaluate bout-related MVPA and HRQoL changes, respectively. RESULTS: PAI increased bout-related MVPA from baseline to post-intervention (4.4 +/- 5.5 to 21.0 +/- 21.4 min/day) versus no change (7.9 +/- 16.6 to 7.6 +/- 11.5 min/day) for SC (p = 0.001). PAI reported greater improvements than SC on all SF-36 physical and mental scales (p < 0.05), except role-emotional. In PAI, better baseline scores on the physical function and general health scales predicted greater bout-related MVPA increases (p < 0.05), and greater bout-related MVPA increases were associated with greater post-intervention improvements on the physical function, bodily pain, and general health scales (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Increasing PA preoperatively improves physical and mental HRQoL in bariatric surgery candidates. Future studies should examine whether this effect improves surgical safety, weight loss outcomes, and postoperative HRQoL.

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