Healthy Eating SMART Goals and Stress Management Strategies

This assignment focuses on setting and achieving SMART goals for healthy eating. The student's goal is to increase green vegetable consumption to improve iron levels. The assignment identifies stressors like junk food cravings, lack of motivation, peer pressure, and lack of resilience. Coping strategies, including replacing junk food with vegetables, identifying health benefits, meditation, and seeking professional help, are proposed to mitigate these stressors. The student also discusses domains of control beliefs and applies Sunsmart theories and concepts, such as problem-solving strategies, the trans-theoretical model, and enhancing self-efficacy, to their personal goal. The assignment provides a comprehensive overview of strategies for behavior change and stress management within a health and wellness context.

Running head: SMART GOALS: HEALTHY EATING
SMART GOALS: HEALTHY EATING
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1SMART GOALS: HEALTHY EATING
Part B
Question 1: SMART GOAL
In the current context, my SMART goal would be to consume green vegetables on a daily
basis, which would include spinach, cucumber, broccoli, capsicum, and cabbage for next 3
months to restore iron level balance in my body. For Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, I will
consume one bowl of spinach and broccoli soup and one bowl of cucumber salad. For Tuesdays
and Fridays, I will include cabbage and cucumber salads, along with capsicum, spinach and
broccoli curry in my diet, and will consume it with Indian homemade bread:
S: To eat green vegetables such as spinach, cucumber, broccoli, capsicum and cabbage
M: To eat these vegetables on a daily basis
A: To eat green vegetables on specific days such as Monday, Wednesday and Thursday
one bowl of soup of spinach and broccoli as well as cucumber salad. Tuesday and Friday
capsicum, spinach and broccoli curry with chapatti along with cabbage, cucumber salad.
R: The goal is realistic because I am vegetarian, I love freshly prepared home-cooked
and it would help me to balance the iron level of the body rather than using infusion.
T: To eat the green vegetables on the daily basis for the next three months
The reason behind setting this SMART goal is to improve the iron concentration of the
body than consuming infusion for iron balance. Although, infusion enhances the taste buds, solid
vegetables absorb maximum nutrients, and improve iron along with other minerals. Therefore,

2SMART GOALS: HEALTHY EATING
eating green vegetables for three months, following the SMART goal, would help me to improve
iron concentration in my body.
Question 2: Stressors
Stressors are an integral part of the human life that not only contribute to the changes in
the behavior or mood but also contribute to serious health problems such as heart disease, high
blood pressure, diabetes or illness.
From the discussion of the seminar, four stressors that impact on the ability to achieve
my smart goal are the following:
• Craving for junk foods
• Lack of motivation
• Peer pressure
• Lack of resilience
Question 3: Coping strategy to achieve SMART GOAL and reduce the impact of
stressor:
Coping strategy refers to the specific effort on behavior that employs to master, reduce,
tolerate or minimize the stressful events. Two distinguished copings strategies have been used to
reduce the stress factors in order to attain the SMART goal. First one is the problem-solving
strategies that are effort given to reduce to alleviate stressful circumstances. Second one is
emotionally focused coping strategies, where efforts are invested to regulate the emotional
consequences of the stressful event. The strategies are following:

3SMART GOALS: HEALTHY EATING
1. Replacing the junk foods with the vegetables:
In order to achieve the SMART goal of replacing the junk foods with vegetables is
effective. Vegetables such as spinach, cabbage, cucumber, and broccoli can be added with other
nutrients. The excessive consumption of junk foods such as chips, burger, pizza, noodles
increases health risks such as blood pressures, obesity, and cardiovascular disease in individuals.
Therefore, during excessive craving for junk foods, replacing it with stir-fried vegetables or juice
can be effective in reducing the craving and assist in achieving the SMART goals. This strategy
is an emotionally focused strategy since craving is an overwhelming emotional experience that
takes over the body and induces behavior to seek help. I believe this strategy to be effective
because it would help me to improve my iron balance and eliminate the bad habits of binge-
eating junk foods.
2. Identification of health benefits and their incorporation in activities:
Lack of motivation is defined as a psychological response that hinders the achievement of
a SMART goal. Therefore, in order to enhance motivation for attaining a SMART goal,
identifying the benefits of eating health food after conducting a thorough research and gathering
evidences on the benefits of healthy diet will help in enhancing my will to achieve the set goals.
These coping strategies such as, eating vegetables after exercise and consuming self-grown
organic vegetables can prove effective for coping with the stressors including lack of motivation.
This is also an emotion-focused goal, which would regulate my emotional behavior and improve
my frequency of eating vegetables. I believe it is an effective strategy which would help me to
adhere to my SMART goal.

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3. Meditation:
Meditation is a technique where an individual uses mindfulness or focusing their mind
on a particular subject to enhance attention and awareness about achieving certain goals. In order
to achieve a goal, meditation is a crucial coping technique which would assist me to be focused
on my goal and carry on the dietary intake modifications as per the goal. It is also an emotion-
focused coping strategy, which would control my emotions and empower me to achieve the goal.
In my opinion, it is an effective strategy which would help me to focus on eating vegetables and
restore and improve resilience.
4. Professional dietitian for reducing the influence of peer pressure:
Peer pressure sometimes influences me to eat junk food which further reduces my
intention of eating fresh vegetable and hinders the process of goal attainment. In the current
context, an effective coping strategy is to seek the help of a professional dietitian who would
provide guidance counseling on improving dietary habits. The professional dietitian would help
me to create a nutritional program based on my exact needs and counsel me to lead a healthier
lifestyle, successfully training me to overcome the impact of peer pressure on not just dietary
habits, but also lifestyle habits surpassing binge-eating junk food. It is a problem based coping
strategy which would help me to reduce the impact of peer pressure, the stressor in the situation.
This is an effective strategy to which would help me to adhere to my goal for the next three
months with the assistance of professional dietitians and also promote the health benefits of
eating vegetables to my peers. Consequently, they would also adopt a habit of eating healthy and
lead healthier life.

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Question 4: Domains of Control Beliefs
 Behavioral: To enhance my locus of control over my SMART Goal, I will engage in
behavioral controls such as adherence to simple but healthy behaviors of gradually
increasing my consumption of green vegetables and gradually incorporate behaviors of
eating small frequent meals throughout the day to reduce craving of junk foods.
 Cognitive: To enhance my locus of control, I would aim to enhance my existing
understanding and cognition of the benefits of healthy eating by undertaking self-
assessments such as online nutritional tests or periodically checking body weight and iron
status.
 Decisional: To increase my locus of control, I would consult a dietician who would aid
me into adhering to my decision of green vegetable consumption by providing a
nutritious diet plan.
 Informational: To increase my locus of control, I would enhance my existing knowledge
on health food consumption by researching on various articles of healthy foods and their
benefits.
Question 5: Sunsmart Theories and Concepts
 Problem solving coping strategies aim to reduce the effects of a stressor, by focusing
directly on the problem or characteristics of stressors and incorporate changes
accordingly. Sumsmart focuses directly on the problem of ultraviolet (UV) radiation by
providing information on the statistical data and effects of UV, followed by tips on
clothing and sunscreen management strategies.

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 Trans-theoretical model of change aids in the adoption of changing behavior in
individuals through 6 stages of pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action,
maintenance and termination, which the Sunsmart program aims to implement through
conductance of various medias and campaigns in schools and communities, where
principles of health protective behavior against UV are imparted.
 Enhancing Self Efficacy aids in successful execution of changed behavior through
encouraging individuals to gain control over their actions. Sunsmart utilizes this theory
with the help of their augmented reality applications and software which allows
individuals to fill details of their demographic characteristics based on which, the
instructions will be provided for protection against UV radiation, which the individuals
can perform themselves.