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-setting constructs; physical activity (PA); and fruit and vegetable (F & V) intake in a sample of older adults. Forty-three older adults (M age = 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 goal setting mechanisms (i.e., specificity, difficulty, effort, commitment, and persistence) at baseline and 8-weeks. Paired t-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 (all p < .05). No statistically significant changes in PA or goal setting mechanisms 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-setting theory 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.