The intent of the workplace HealthEYou Program for metabolic disease prevention is to promote healthy eating behaviors, physical activity, goal setting, accountability and overall well-being among Elon University staff and faculty through weekly engaging education sessions, individual check-ins and exercise in Fall of 2021.
Though healthy lifestyle habits are well understood to result in better health outcomes, sticking to lifestyle changes is challenging, with variables such as lack of knowledge and access to support preventing many people from achieving their best health outcomes.
Educational programs designed to address and support the dietary and lifestyle changes that are needed appear to work. For example, a 12-week intervention program consisting of 90-minute group sessions providing education, skills building, self-monitoring and physical activity resulted in decreased blood glucose levels to prevent diabetes and sustained weight loss in participants at a six-month follow up (Seidel et al,.2008). Studies like this one support the use of education programs in improving health, and outcomes are even better if the program is matched to the needs of the community it is serving and individualized as much as possible (Rashed, et al 2016).
Using the information gained from focus groups in May 2021 to determine what people want and need to know and how to make it convenient at Elon, the HealthEYou team (Dr. Svetlana Nepocatych, Lecturer Liz Bailey and students Talya Geller and Gabrielle Clancy) intend to provide a 16 week education program (synchronous – 8 weeks and asynchronous -8 weeks) to help participants get control of their weight and disease risk factors, and establish lasting behavior change to control health. The program is a pilot program with a research component attached to evaluate its effectiveness. It will consist of an intensive pre-screening, 8 weeks of group education on campus and individual check-ins and goal setting, and post-screening. This will be followed by another 8 weeks of asynchronous education with 2 check-ins, a 4 week washout period in January, and a final screening in February.
If you are interested in hearing more or signing up for the program please contact Liz Bailey (ebailey@elon.edu) or any member of the team. Isn’t it time to get control of your health?