Creating Healthy Habits for Independent Living
To help our community develop healthy, daily practices, we introduced Healthy Habits for Independent Living, a 10-week holistic health program led by Jenn Ko of George Washington University.
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One of the most difficult transitions to living on your own is establishing healthy habits in terms of diet and physical exercise. Not only is it tempting to eat out frequently, it can be difficult to learn new recipes, as well as confusing to know what to buy at the grocery store.
To help our community develop healthy, daily practices, we introduced Healthy Habits for Independent Living, a 10-week holistic health program led by Jenn Ko of George Washington University.
The course uses a proven curriculum based on the Health Promotion Program for Adults with Developmental Disabilities (DD) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Weekly meetings feature a combination of coursework based on health literacy, nutrition, exercise, meal planning, and cooking. To put our lessons into practice, we also have bi-weekly practicums based on gym instruction, grocery shopping, and more.
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As we’ve experienced with a lot of our programming, oftentimes the best part of the group is the community we create. This tight-knit group of OSG members are part of a group chat where they share what they’re eating that day, discuss new recipes they’ve prepared and send each other encouraging messages.
Together the group has made incredible progress in their journey to healthy living: Alex, Ben, Maggie and Matthew say they’re eating a greater variety of food and introducing more vegetables into their diet; Huan and Emma have learned to cook new recipes using quinoa; Andrew is budgeting better by buying more groceries and in turn eating out less; Sarah has switched out old snacks for healthier ones, and Mike is walking more!
While Our Stomping Ground works hard to find housing for people with disabilities, we’re also deeply committed to making sure those in our community are living healthy sustainable lifestyles, so both their mental and physical health can thrive.
If you’d like to support Our Stomping Ground and help us continue delivering this kind of impactful programming, please consider donating here. Programs such as this are free to our community, but only with the help of others.
Our next 10-week Healthy Habits for Independent Living course will likely start again in the Fall. Keep an eye on our event calendar to register, and if you haven’t already joined our mailing list, click here to subscribe and learn about our weekly events.
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