Abstract: Health motivation is the desire to be healthy, and is one of the determinants of healthy behaviors. The purpose of this article was to review current and previous theoretical and empirical studies on health motivation. One promising health motivation theory argues that health motivation is an inner dynamic process, and that it consists of four stages: forming health motivational tendency, making plans, initiating action, and persisting in action. Measures of health motivation can be classified into two categories – general measures and specific measures. Generally, empirical studies have shown that health motivation can enhance individuals’ health behaviors, and hence improve their health.

Key words: health motivation, process model of health motivation, healthy behaviors