Members of the media are asked to contact Barbara O’Neill, extension specialist in financial resource management, Rutgers Cooperative Extension by email at oneill@aesop.rutgers.edu or by phone at 848-932-9126.
To help Americans reach their personal health and financial planning goals, the Cooperative Extension system is launching an online Small Steps to Health and Wealth™ (SSHW) Challenge called “Spring 2013 SSHW Challenge.” This free five-week program, open to anyone who enrolls online, will be held from April 14 through May 18. Prizes will be awarded for participants who report the highest point totals.
To sign up for the SSHW Challenge, follow the “Challenges” link on the Small Steps to Health and Wealth™ web site. Set up a user name and password and download a simple one-page user’s guide with instructions about how to proceed to enroll in the spring Challenge.
The SSHW Challenge is part of Small Steps to Health and Wealth™, a national Cooperative Extension program developed to motivate Americans to take action to simultaneously improve their health and personal finances. It was built around a framework of 25 research-based behavior change strategies and was originally developed in a “paper and pencil” format with printed worksheets to track daily points. It’s now available online for participation nationwide.
It’s been well documented that, when people monitor their behavior and measure how they’re doing, they are often inspired to do better and achieve positive results. Participants in a SSHW Challenge are “on their honor” to report their activities accurately. If they “cheat” on reporting their points, they are only cheating themselves by not following the recommended daily health and financial practices.
The SSHW Challenge is based on the performance of ten recommended practices on a daily basis, five that involve health and nutrition and five that involve financial management. Ten points are given for performing each practice for a maximum of 700 points per week and 3,500 points for the entire challenge 5 week program. “The Challenge is a great way to convert goals like losing weight and saving money into daily action steps,” notes Barbara O’Neill, extension specialist in financial resource management at Rutgers Cooperative Extension.
The five daily health and nutrition practices are: eat at least 4 cups of fruits and vegetables; get at least 30 minutes of physical activity; drink water or unsweetened beverages instead of sugar-sweetened beverages; eat at least two servings of whole grain foods; and learn something new about health and nutrition.
The five daily financial management practices included in the SSHW Challenge are save a $1 bill (or more) and/or pocket change; invest $5 or more per day (including automated retirement savings plan deposits); track money spent throughout the day; eat lunch prepared at home; and learn something new about personal finance. The latter activity, for both health and personal finances, can be accomplished by visiting web sites, attending seminars, or by reading, listening to, or viewing media reports.
Spring 2013 SSHW Challenge participants will have an opportunity to replace one daily health activity and one daily personal finance activity with unique daily personal challenges of their own. “Providing some adaptation of the traditional SSHW Challenge format will make the Challenge more “personal” for participants and give them an opportunity to practice new behaviors if they are already doing all of the 10 pre-selected activities,” explains O’Neill.
As participants enter their personal data, they will see their point totals for each day of the week and for each of the ten activities described above. They’ll also see a bar graph that compares their personal progress to the average scores of everyone else participating in the Challenge. Daily motivational messages will also be provided to participants. Paper tracking forms can be downloaded to keep track of daily activities until they are entered online.
Doing even one of the 10 recommended daily practices is a great way to get started on the path to better health and improved financial security. The more SSHW Challenge activities performed by participants the better. To sign up for “Spring 2013 SSHW Challenge,” visit the Rutgers SSHW web site.
