Oral

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans are written for health care professionals and policy makers; therefore, it is critical that the key messages from both policy documents be communicating to the general public. The Eat Healthy · Be Active Community Workshops were created by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as a tool to communicate these messages. The intended audience for teaching the workshops and for this session is community leaders, health promoters, dietitians, and educators, among others. Six one-hour workshops were created on the following topics: 1)Enjoy healthy food that tastes great; 2) Quick health meals and snacks; 3) Eating healthy on a budget; 4)Top tips for losing weight and keeping it off; 5) Making healthy eating part of your total lifestyle; and 6) Physical activity is the key to living well. The Community Workshops can be taught as an entire series, or as individual lessons with each workshop containing a lesson plan, learning objectives, talking points, and hands-on activities, along with corresponding handouts and video vignettes. These resources provide an interactive tool for facilitators to communicate the key messages from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans to their communities. The workshops were pilot tested in 10 different locations across the U.S. with participants of a variety of educational and socio-economic backgrounds to ensure messages and the method of delivery resonated with the participants. Pilot testing confirmed that the workshops represent a valuable teaching tool which can be utilized with adults of diverse backgrounds. This session will introduce the workshops to the audience and provide tips and instructions for how to implement the workshops in their own community. Lessons learned from pilot testing which were incorporated into the final product will be reviewed. In addition, data collected from pilot testing will be presented and discussed.

Session Objectives: 1. Identify strategies for effectively utilizing and implementing the community workshop series within various communities. 2. Discuss and present results from pilot testing and lessons learned from implementing the workshops in a variety of settings. 3. Describe the successful use of the community workshops within a faith-based setting with an emphasis on healthy eating and physical activity strategies to promote weight loss and maintenance.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)