And we go from talking about celebrity spokespeople to looking at peer role models. Real people who have made positive changes in their lives can be great motivators of change in others. Of course, this is classic Bandura. His Social Learning Theory says that when we observe someone else engaging in a behavior and receiving positive consequences as a result, especially if the role model is similar to ourselves, we are much more likely to try out that behavior as well.
This is why GlaxoSmithKline only sought out actors for its commercials for NicoDerm patches who were smokers or former smokers. And why its new campaign for Commit nicotine lozenges will follow four real people over 13 weeks as they attempt to quit smoking. Watching someone else struggling with quitting and succeeding provides much more useful information in someone’s own attempts than inauthentic actors reading lines.
And this is why one woman was able to inspire her community to lose 8,000 pounds. I recently received a prepublication copy of a book called From Fat to Fit – Turn Yourself into a Weapon of Mass Reduction. The author, Carole Carson, relates the story of how her own efforts to lose weight (62 lbs.), which were chronicled in her local newspaper, turned into a community-wide fitness campaign called the Nevada County Meltdown. This effort — run entirely on a free, volunteer and ad-hoc basis — involved over 1,000 participants, who lost nearly four tons of weight in eight weeks.
Now, with Carole’s book coming out in April, she is offering her guidance to another community to replicate the success they experienced in Nevada County (Calif.). She is sponsoring a contest to select the next Community Meltdown location. If you are a professional working on obesity prevention, or if you are a motivated individual who wants to help members of your community become healthier, think about entering the contest — all it takes is a 2-minute VHS or DVD spot on why your community should win, along with a 150-word written plan. You don’t get any funding for it, but you do get the benefit of Carole’s experience and lessons learned. And hurry, because the deadline is January 30, 2007.
Technorati Tags: obesity, weight loss, fitness, health
Nedra helps nonprofits and public agencies create positive change on health and social issues through social marketing and transmedia storytelling strategies at Weinreich Communications since founding the company in 1995. She helps organizations make a difference for the populations they serve by strategically designing programs that draw on state-of-the-art behavior change techniques, digital media approaches and the power of stories. 
