Diabetes Dateline
Fall 2011
New Videos, Website Offer Important Resources for People Affected by Diabetes
New videos to help people make lifestyle changes
and cope with the demands of diabetes are
available from the National Diabetes Education
Program (NDEP), which is jointly sponsored by the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention. The series of 3- to
5-minute videos, which can be found at www.yourdiabetesinfo.org/HealthSense 
,
addresses topics such as setting goals to improve health, living with diabetes, finding
support, preventing diabetes, and getting more physical activity.
The video series is the latest addition to the NDEP’s offerings in lifestyle change. The videos are being released to coincide with the redesign of the NDEP’s online library of behavior change resources, Diabetes HealthSense. Diabetes HealthSense provides users with a database of research, tools, and programs to address the wide array of psychosocial and lifestyle-change challenges associated with diabetes self-management. Resources included in Diabetes HealthSense have been reviewed by a team of leading independent experts on psychosocial issues with specific expertise in the science of behavior change.
“For more than 14 years, the NDEP has been in the forefront of raising awareness about diabetes, but more needs to be done to provide resources and tools to support health care providers and their patients when it comes to achieving and sustaining health goals,” said Griffin P. Rodgers, M.D., M.A.C.P., director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), NIH.
Visitors to the Diabetes HealthSense site can view videos featuring experts—as well as people living with diabetes or working to prevent type 2 diabetes—about setting goals and making lifestyle changes. Initial videos—with more in the series to follow—include the following:
- Setting Goals to Improve Your Health
- Managing Type 2 Diabetes
- Living with Diabetes: Finding the Support You Need
- Preventing Type 2 Diabetes
- Preventing Type 2 Diabetes: Maintaining a Healthy Weight
- Physical Activity: Practical Tips and Action Steps
Additionally, visitors can choose what they’d like help with, such as how to cope with stress and emotions, eat healthy, or be active. They can also utilize tracking tools for calories or physical activity and online programs to help them manage their weight or stop smoking.
“It’s common to feel overwhelmed, sad, or angry when you are living with a chronic disease such as diabetes,” said the NDEP’s Executive Committee Chair and Certified Diabetes Educator Martha M. Funnell, M.S., R.N. “[People] may know what to do to improve their health, but figuring out how to do it can be one of the biggest challenges. For example, people know that being physically active can help them lose weight. But do they know how to take the necessary steps to become more physically active and keep it up over time?”
Diabetes HealthSense includes links to tools and programs to help people set goals and find ways to deal with the stress and emotions that can prevent people from achieving their goals—whether they have diabetes or are at risk for the disease.
NDEP resources are available at
www.yourdiabetesinfo.org or by calling toll-free
1–888–693–NDEP (1–888–693–6337).
NIH Publication No. 12–4562
December 2011
Page last updated: December 19, 2011
