Promoting PA @ a health fair

5-11-11: I rec'd this e-mail request from a nursing student who was putting together a booth about physical activity for a health fair. I thought I'd save my response to him here, in case anyone else was wanting to do the same thing for their school, church, workplace, etc. Here it is!

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I would go to the website, Execise is Medicine, because they have a lot of resources for the healthcare provider, health educator, lay person, etc. There are things you can print off there or maybe even order if you have time.

I personally don't have a lot of "give away" stuff here, due to lack of storage space, so your best bet would be to go to EIM. I'm also going to cc this to a contact at the county health dept., Pam Sampson. She's my physical activity evangelist at the county and she may have some resources there you can pick up as well. She was instrumental in putting together the "Be Active Directory" for the tri-county area, a listing of free and low-cost options for PA. You can either print those out or give out a flyer with the link on it (http://tinyurl.com/Beactivedirectory).

Finally, for your booth, I would maybe have some kind of activity, like a game of some sort (we usually do the Xavix jackie chan Dash as a 10-sec. contest for fair goers to try and see if they can break the top scores--you can see if you can borrow that from Claudio at the XRtainment Zone in the Drayson Center. They may be able to spare a unit for your fair).

Also, some visiual, to catch their attention, like have a picture of a big couch potato on the couch, a smoker, and someone who is overweight, and ask the question: Which is the most deadly risk factor of the 3? (Answer: couch potato!) Something to get people thinking.

One last resource would be the "Be Active Your Way" blog, put out by the Dept. of HHS. They may have some handouts you can print out, at least the federal guidelines and how to get started articles, that kind of thing.