title: Designing Exercise and Nutrition Programs to Promote Normal Weight Maintenance for Nurses.
abstract: Living a healthy lifestyle is a constant choice. As a life goal, it is a decision to uphold every moment and is best achieved with support of others. There are a multitude of workplace wellness and healthy lifestyle programs that address achieving and maintaining the goal of normal weight over a lifetime. Fewer such evidence based programs exist and a goal of our hospital is to create a comprehensive wellness program based on evidence. In the context of normal weight maintenance in nurses, this article discusses selected challenges for healthy eating and exercise and nurse fitness programs based on the author and her colleagues experiences with specific obesity research interventions, such as Nurses Living FitTM, that we designed and offered. An exemplar provides details about our wellness programs, which included three annual walk or run events, one full day conference, and a series of multiple exercise, yoga, and nutrition sessions. Our goal was to expose nurses to healthier lifestyle aspects with a primary focus on the optimal balance of exercise and nutrition. Over the years of research, events, and programs, greater than 1,000 people have participated. The conclusion includes implications for education and practice in the hope that our experiences may motive nurses to design exercise and nutrition programs to promote normal weight maintenance in nurses.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Gabel Speroni
mesh_terms: D004032:Diet; D015444:Exercise; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D009726:Nurses; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation; D014481:United States; D017132:Workplace