Changing behaviors to optimize women's health: a multidisciplinary seminar

The purpose of this article is to summarize the multidisciplinary seminar, "Changing Behaviors to Optimize Women's Health," which was offered in June 1997. We describe each of the 5 seminar presentations and present a synopsis of their conclusions and implications for dietetics practice. The seminar presented evidence that women's health is a national issue of increasing economic, political, and medical importance; the treatment and prevention of many diseases common to women have special and unique nutritional considerations; and optimizing women's health will require more effective strategies for transforming information into health practices. We discuss salient points from the seminar regarding the leadership roles of dietitians as educators, advocates, and agents for behavior change in optimizing women's health and explore strategies that could help dietetics professionals enhance their effectiveness among women, including building partnerships with patients, developing an understanding of the patient's experience, starting where the patient is, and concentrating on small changes for success.