About Us: Smart Start Program Summary

Smart Start is a virtual program aimed at providing young adult women with the knowledge and skills needed to increase their healthy fat consumption in order to prevent the development or worsening symptoms of cardiovascular disease.

Environmental component:

An administration team will be responsible for marketing, registration, and scheduling. Posters that advertise the program and provide contact information will be produced and distributed to establishments frequented by this demographic such as grocery stores, boutiques, coffee shops, cafes, bars and restaurants. A social media campaign will be launched to draw a being audience. The accounts will provide contact information and links to register for the program.

Curriculum component:

The program will be comprised of 6 sessions, 1 session a week for 6 weeks. The curriculum is broken into three modules- Why: Risk Assessment and Motivation, What: Dietary Understanding, and How: Smart Goals- each being completed across the span of 2 sessions. Each session will be conducted virtually through Zoom and will last for approximately 60 minutes. Sessions will consist of one educator and no more than 5 women per group. The educators will be nutrition professionals and will be trained in the material and familiar with the lesson plans.

The Why: Risk Assessment and Motivation will contain the following:

  • Instructors will educate participants on cardiovascular disease (CVD), focusing on prevalence and risk for target demographic
  • Instructors will provide the participants with a self-assessments of risky behaviors/risk factors to be completed
  • Instructors will facilitate group discussions to talk about the results of the self-assessments and give the participants a chance to connect and share like experiences

The What: Dietary Understanding

  • Instructors will educate participants on diet’s role in CVD prevention
  • Instructors will discuss the different types of fats and what foods in which they are found
  • Instructors will provide ways to increase healthy fat consumption
  • Instructors will facilitate group discussions to talk about current dietary habits, nutrition knowledge and give the participants a chance to connect and share like experiences

The How: SMART Goals

  • Instructors will discuss the importance of creating SMART goals to succeed in behavior changes
  • Instructors will identify the components of SMART goals
  • Instructors will facilitate the participants creation of personalized SMART goals
  • Instructors will lead group discussions to share the personal SMART goals created and to provide feedback and support

Training component:

The instructors will be nutrition professionals with a firm understanding of nutrition principles. They will require training sessions before the beginning of the program. Training will consist of two sessions and all necessary materials will be provided during theses sessions.

Training will consist of:

  • A technology literacy lesson, providing education on how to run the programs (i.e. Zoom, etc.) necessary for the program
  • Coverage of lesson plan and topics to be discussed
  • Demonstration of facilitation of assessments and discussions
  • Involvement of instructors in role play and mock sessions