Goal Setting to Promote a Health Lifestyle.
The purpose of this parallel-group study was to determine whether a feasibility study based on newsletters and telephone counseling would improve goal-settingconstructs; physical activity (PA); and fruit and vegetable (F & V) intake in a sample of older adults. Forty-three older adults (Mage = 70 years, >70% Asian, 54% female) living in Honolulu, Hawaii were recruited and randomly assigned to either a PA or F & V intake condition. All participants completed measures of PA, F & V intake, and goalsettingmechanisms (i.e., specificity, difficulty, effort, commitment, and persistence) at baseline and 8-weeks. Pairedt-tests were used to evaluate changes across time. We found that F & V participants significantly increased F & V intake and mean scores of goal specificity, effort, commitment, and persistence (allp< .05). No statistically significant changes in PA or goalsettingmechanisms were observed for participants in the PA condition. Overall, our results show that a short-term intervention using newsletters and motivational calls based on goal-settingtheory was effective in improving F & V intake; however, more research is needed to determine whether these strategies are effective for improving PA among a multiethnic sample of older adults.
The University of Houston/MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX.
Raheem J
RJ
Paxton
The University of Texas Science Center in Houston, TX.
Wendell C
WC
Taylor
Health Services Delivery and Organization Program at the Houston VA in Houston, TX.
Gina Evans
GE
Hudnall
The H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, FL.
Juliette
J
Christie
Diet; Parallel-group; Physical activity; Randomized