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Broome County, N.Y. Adapts Group Weight-Loss Techniques for Older People
It all started with an article in the “Ladies’ Home Journal.” Lisa Schuhle was amazed to read that a community had lost 356,000 pounds in a major group weight-loss effort. Lisa took the story to her co-workers at Broome County’s Office for Aging, and in January 2000, Mission Meltaway (originally dubbed “Losing to Win”) was born.
Group Weight Loss for Older People
Mission Meltaway is a jump-start weight-loss program with a 4-week format. The program’s goals are to educate and motivate older people to have healthy diets and increase physical activity levels. The program is based on the premise that everyone can make small changes in their daily lives to promote weight loss and wellness, and that small changes often lead to larger ones.
Mission Meltaway is a group weight-loss program, in which only the total weight loss of the group is announced. (Participants may receive their individual weights privately if they wish.) Participants do not risk the embarrassment of a public announcement of individual weight, but the desire to contribute to the aggregate weight loss creates motivation and community support. As Betsy Majors, a participant in a post-holiday session this year, reports, “We’re mostly all keeping it up now. We see each other at the Senior Center and we ask each other if we’ve been cheating.”
Getting Started
The team approach to weight loss is promoted throughout Broome County in the program’s outreach material, which consists of flyers, announcements in the Office for Aging publication, “Senior News,” and articles in “Successful Aging,” a regular feature in the “Press & Sun Bulletin” newspaper. The program is also promoted locally through the county’s network of senior centers, where meetings are held. Typically, more than half of participants have not been regular senior center attendees, so the program is having the secondary benefit of introducing new people to the centers.
An Opening Bash is held to get everyone started in the weight-loss program. Each participant is asked to sign a simple self-commitment contract, and a number of resources are distributed free of charge. These include a cookbook featuring healthy meals served at the senior centers, a meal planning guide, and a food diary. The Opening Bash is typically a single, centralized meeting in Binghamton, but in at least one instance, program organizers have conducted a local Opening Bash for a rural community that requested it.
Getting Local
Following the centralized Opening Bash, which typically includes 75 to 100 people, weekly meetings are held in local senior centers, with local groups ranging from 10 to 25 participants. Dietitians and other staff from the Office for Aging make presentations at the local meetings on nutrition and strategies for increasing activity levels. Participants are provided with local activity schedules (such as walking in schools) and given practical hints (like intentionally parking farther from store entrances when out shopping). Local teams are encouraged to create team spirit by adopting names, such as The Meltaway Ladies, Lucky Losers, Tons of Fun, Winning Walkers and the Wanna Bees.
Getting Thin and Having Fun
A pre- and post-survey process and weight-taking have enabled the Office for Aging to track short-term outcomes from the beginning to the end of a session. A recent session with 89 people enjoyed a completion rate of 70 percent. Of those who completed the session, 67 percent lost weight.
For some, there is another unexpected result—having a good time. Participant Betsy Majors reports that she went into the program with some skepticism, and was “really quite surprised at how much fun we were all having.” When their session ended, Majors’ team morphed into a group that meets three times a week at the senior center to do chair exercises. Individuals from other teams have taken advantage of one of the program’s benefits—a month’s free membership at a local health club.
Program Partners
Mission Meltaway was conceived and is organized by the Broome County Office for Aging. Senior centers contribute space for meetings and help promote the program. They also have contributed the many recipes that comprise the cookbook used for the program. The “Press & Sun Bulletin” provides free space for outreach through its “Successful Aging” column. Cornell Cooperative Extension has engaged in joint outreach by offering its Eat Smart NY classes to Meltaway participants. The Central New York Kidney Foundation has participated at the Opening Bash to take blood glucose levels. Area health clubs and the YMCA have donated free trial-period memberships to the program.
Program Costs and Funding
Mission Meltaway is funded primarily by discretionary Older Americans Act funds that support the Office for Aging. Broome County has estimated its costs at $2,800 per session, based on four locations serving 10 to 25 people per location. Most of these costs are for staffing by people already employed by the Office, including a person who organizes the program, a dietician or nutritionist and a physical activity person who present information at meetings, and a clerical support person who registers participants and reproduces materials. Staff involvement varies, but is typically one to two hours per staff per day over a 6-week period.
Future Plans
The Office for Aging is engaged in a new partnership with the County Health Department to expand Mission Meltaway beyond its traditional target group of people 55 years of age and older. Broome County, in partnership with several other New York counties, has been awarded a 5-year grant with the federal Department of Health and Human Services through the Steps to a Healthier US initiative. The federal program aims to help Americans live longer, better and healthier lives by reducing the burdens of diabetes, asthma, obesity and being overweight, and by addressing three related risk factors—physical inactivity, poor nutrition and tobacco use. The details of how Mission Meltaway will participate in the federal project are still being discussed, but the collaboration promises to extend the concept to younger people with chronic conditions. It may also help the Office for Aging sharpen its focus on subgroups of older people with chronic conditions, prime candidates for preventing admissions to hospitals and nursing homes.
For More Information
Lisa Schuhle, Broome County (N.Y.) Office for Aging
LSchuhle@co.broome.ny.us
607-778-2411
Mission Meltaway
Sample Format
Opening Bash (1.5 to 2 hours)
- Centralized event is held to kick off the session countywide (75-100 people)
- Participants’ weight, height, body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, and blood glucose level are measured
- Participants sign a program contract and release-of-information form
- Pre-survey is completed by participants?
- Participants are seated with others from their local senior centers
- Presentations are made on nutrition and increasing physical activity
- Materials are distributed:
o Meal-planning guide
o Cookbook
o Water pad
o Portion-size reference card
o Food diary
o General information on nutrition and physical activity
o One-month free membership at local health club
- Healthy snack from the cookbook is served
- Schedule of weekly presentations at local senior centers is distributed
Week 1 (1 hour)
- Local meetings are held at four senior centers (10-25 participants per site)
- Participants are weighed
- Presentation is made by dietician
Week 2 (1 hour)
- Presentation is made by Office for Aging staff on increasing physical activity
- Optional weekly weigh-in is offered
Week 3 (1 hour)
- Open discussion is held to see how participants are doing
- Dietician presents information on nutrition and physical activity
- Optional weekly weigh-in is offered
Week 4 (1 hour) Ending Bash, Wrap-Up
- Post-survey is completed by participants?
- Weight, blood pressure, and blood glucose level are measured
- Healthy snack from the cookbook is served
- Prize is presented to every person for participating (wrapped fruit)
- Aggregate weight loss of group is announced
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