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AMBER MOSHER: At this time I think we’re going to give Katrina our first question.
Katrina, someone would like to know if you’re planning on pilot testing the community workshops
in other communities.
DR. KATRINA BUTNER: At this time, we’re finished pilot testing the workshops. The
main purpose of doing the pilot testing last Fall was to make sure the curriculum that
we had put together actually did work in a variety of community settings. And so pilot
testing was done in preparation for the final release. And since we have finalized the workshops
we’re not going to be testing this any further, at least from our office.
But we really would encourage everyone, as they start teaching it and are learning new
things, while they are teaching it in their community, to share those experiences with
us and let us know how things are going. We’ve learned a lot from pilot testing, and put
a lot of that information into the best practices for implementation document that I mentioned.
It is also available on the website. But we’d encourage you to test out the workshops in
your community and to try it out. We tested it in a variety of settings and believe it
will work well in many different community adult settings.
AMBER MOSHER: Awesome. Good answer. Thanks a lot for that. And like Katrina said, the
best practices document will be available on our website, http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines,
as well as the slides from today where you can review the pilot testing results and data.
Sarah, if you’re ready to go, I’m going to ask the next question of you. Someone would
like to know what your favorite workshop was to teach and why.
SARAH BURKETT: I actually think the last workshop; “Physical activity is key to living well”
was my favorite, partly because it was kind of surprising the group I had initially was
very inactive and very resistant, really, to doing to the stretch activities or really
any kind of physical activity.
Like I mentioned earlier, the use of music really, I think, kind of helped lightened
up the atmosphere and people became less self-conscious as they were willing to do that. I just made
the comment, “If you don’t feel like you can do the activities that we are working
on, just move to the music.” And so that seemed to help with getting people to be more
willing to try new things. And the other thing was I noticed by the end of this series many
were convinced because they had been doing these activities at home that they actually
felt better, so that they were willing to continue to do this for the future. I was
just so impressed that I heard the comments that the participants would make about changes
they had made at home or their breaks at work, or several had formed groups at work that
would do activities after work hours that I was just so impressed that it seemed to
make a difference in their daily lives.
AMBER MOSHER: Thank you. That is encouraging feedback and experiences from your pilot testing.
Katrina, the next question is going to be for you. Again, participants keep the questions
coming, we have plenty of time to answer those. Someone would like to know if the community
workshop materials are printable, downloadable online and how to access those.
DR. KATRINA BUTNER: Great question. So at this point if you notice on your last slide
we have the website of our dietary guidelines site at http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/workshops.
And if you go on that site you will see the entire series. It’s actually a book of nearly
200 pages, so just be mindful that it is a very large file when you open that. But then
you can go in and go through each of the individual workshops themselves. So there’s a front
letter, and then all six workshops and then an appendix section.
At this point you can download each of these. You can print them off. You can make photocopies
of the handouts to be able to distribute. What we’re working on right now is to be
able to get print copies. One of the things we found in pilot testing, we were able to
print some of these out, and it was helpful to teach from a book.
So we are looking to have a full printed copy, so close to 200 pages of a resource available
for everyone come October. So we have some information about that on our website and
you can keep checking back. In the meantime, we would encourage you just to download the
PDF files, and you can go through each of the workshop series. Then separately on the
website is listed the handouts.
As I mentioned, there’s a two-page handout that kind of was the basis for development
of each of these workshops. So the handout is listed separately as a PDF in both English
and Spanish. In addition to that, you can also notice on the website that you can download
the short video clips as well. So at this point the website is the best place to go
to for all of the information download it and start teaching it, and then check back
soon in October. We’ll be able to direct where to get print copies so you can have
a hard version printed out.
AMBER MOSHER: Okay, thank you so much. Sarah, we’ve got another question for you. Someone
would like to know, what was one of the biggest challenges you experienced when you were implementing
the workshops during pilot testing and how you overcame that.
SARAH BURKETT: Yes, that’s a good question. Like I mentioned earlier, really mine was
the movement or physical activity was really initially one of the biggest challenges for
me. A lot of my participants liked to cook and were interested in experimenting and doing
different things from the food side. But the activities that were included with each of
the workshops were very varied and interesting in and of themselves. And, like I said, supplementing
the music with that made them very enjoyable to the participants.
Sometimes I would incorporate other activities. Like Workshop 6, there was a group walk. It
was rather cold that day, so we ended up doing relays doing balloons. Any time I could think
of something that would make it a little bit more festive and enjoyable from the participants,
we tried to do that and it seemed to work.
AMBER MOSHER: I appreciate that feedback, and we know you did a lot of good things at
your pilot testing site, and some really creative ways to keep your participants engaged, so
thank you for that feedback.
Katrina, we’ve got another question for you. Some of the webinar participants would
like to know if the workshops can also be taught in younger populations.
DR. KATRINA BUTNER: Great question. We designed the workshops series and pilot tested it primarily
focused in the adult population, realizing that adults really are the catalyst to teaching
children. And so our hope was that if we could provide easy tips and tools and guides that
could help adults, they could then in turn help translate these messages into the youth
in their families, in their school environments, and in their settings.
So while this wasn’t necessarily geared toward the youth level to teach it, we’re
really hoping that the messages that come out of this can be applied as well to youth
in the way that parents or administrators or school teachers could be able to share
kind of those key important lessons about eating healthy and being active.
Also, I’ve seen a few questions asking about specific populations. I think while we didn’t
-- this pilot testing was done kind of in a general variety of settings, various educational
backgrounds, various literacy levels, we didn’t test it specifically with people that were
at risk for diabetes, for example, or with a focus on weight loss.
But like I mentioned at the end, you can certainly take this series and tailor it to the group
that you’re working with. Within the appendix we have a lot more additional information.
Things like recipes. There’s additional food safety. The Palate Plus program that
I mentioned. So we’d really encourage you to kind of take this series as a starting
point, and then tailor it and add to it so that it can be of use within your communities.