By choosing the Personal Empowerment Plan (PEP) for Improving Eating and Increasing Physical Activity, you have taken a big step toward creating a healthier you. PEP provides a guide to empower you to make positive changes in your eating and physical activity behaviors to improve your health and wellbeing.

Specifically, the three main goals of PEP are to:

 

Ø      Increase fruit and vegetable consumption

Ø      Decrease saturated and trans fat intake

Ø      Increase moderate-intensity physical activity 

According to formative research the predominant barriers faced by individuals changing their health behaviors were lack of energy and lack of time. PEP addresses these barriers by providing simple ways for individuals to eat healthier foods and increase physical activity as part of their daily lives.

The PEP Kit Contents:

1. Introduction to Healthy Eating or Physical Activity - This section provides a basic introduction to the public health guidelines for healthy eating or physical activity, as well as a short overview of the stages of readiness to change health behaviors.

2. Weighing the pros and cons - In this section, participants are asked to identify their personal benefits and barriers to healthy eating or physical activity. Next, they are asked to rate their confidence in making changes to their healthy eating or physical activity behaviors.

3. Steps to Success - Materials tailored to each participant's stage of readiness to change are provided in this section of the Kit. We advise participants to spend adequate time and energy completing their stage-based activities.

4.  Healthy Eating or Physical Activity Tips - In this section, participants are provided with tips for improving their eating habits or becoming more physically active. Participants are encouraged to select one or more tips to try to incorporate into their life.

5.  Healthy Eating or Physical Activity Calendar - A 3-month calendar for tracking goals and plans for healthy eating or physical activity is presented in this section. This Calendar will help participants understand the importance of setting goals and explain that goals provide focus and motivation.

6. Healthy Eating or Physical Activity Log - Logging, or keeping track of eating and activity behaviors, is a key component to successful behavior change. Logging allows participants to learn about their daily habits and to track progress towards their goals. Because the Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Logs provided in this section may be intimidating at first glance, you may want to take some time to consider the example provided on the second page of the log. It is important to log with enthusiasm and understanding...enthusiasm for the tremendous benefit of logging to a behavior change and understanding that it is a difficult process that will take some time and effort to learn.

 PLEASE NOTE IF YOU PLAN ON LOGGING MULTIPLE TYPES OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY YOU NEED TO USE THE PEP PHYSICAL ACTIVITY LOGS OR ELECTRONIC LOGGING. PARTICIPANTS MAY NOT COMBINE THE WALKING LOGS WITH THE PEP PHYSICAL ACTIVITY PROGRAM LOGS.