Challenge Your Way to Better Health Today!

As a direct support professional or family member, you do everything you can to support the person(s) in your care to live their best life. You care about their overall health and wellbeing, so you encourage healthy eating, regular physical activity, and social interaction.

But, it can be challenging to motivate someone else to live a healthy lifestyle. Often, it is a delicate balancing act between encouraging engagement, supporting them where they are, and just being a nag. After all, the person you support is an adult who can choose how to live their own life.

That’s true. They have every right to choose sitting on the couch over taking a walk, or a double bacon-cheeseburger with fries over a grilled salmon and a side salad. But you are responsible for their health and safety so you keep trying, always looking for new ways to motivate and inspire them.

Fitness & Lifestyle Apps Are Great, But…

Mobile apps have the potential to promote healthy lifestyle changes and motivate physical activity and healthy eating. Many fitness and lifestyle apps on the market today are able to sync with wearable trackers like watches or rings, can track and report lots of data about a person’s health at any given time, …and they’re fun!

But all those amazing features may make many of these apps inaccessible for someone with intellectual disabilities. Setting them up can be a complicated and confusing process of filling out information, creating secure passwords, multi-factor authentication, and connecting a wearable using Bluetooth technology. And if something doesn’t work? More often than not, they’ll just delete the app.

If they are buying these apps or subscribing to any services, this can be a costly trial-and-error process. Privacy and security are also a concern because these apps often request access to a wealth of information on the person’s device, which they may “agree” to without understanding the significance of everything they’re granting access to.

A Healthy Lifestyle App for People with Intellectual Disabilities!

At Milestone HCQU West, we have developed a healthy lifestyle app, called Wellness War, to help people with intellectual disabilities take charge of their own health and wellness! Wellness War is designed to be fun and motivating… not complicated. Plus, it’s free. Yeah, FREE.

Creating an account is easy and uses your device ID. That means you don’t have to create a username and password because the app uses the same login credentials you use for your phone (Apple ID or Google ID). And, if you have biometric features like fingerprint or facial recognition on your device, creating an account is as simple as one click of a button!

Once signed in, choose an Avatar, and give it a name, and that’s it! You are on your way to creating your first challenge!

Designed for Ease of Use

Challenging a friend is a straightforward process and uses your device’s internal sharing mechanism. So, you can share challenges by email, text message, etc., the same way you already share photos and pet videos. When sharing a challenge, users are reminded that the safest option is to send it via email or text to someone they know. Posting it to social media is discouraged because the challenge could be accepted by someone they don’t know.

Additionally, because we value privacy and security, Wellness War does not sync with any other devices or wearable trackers. It relies on an honor system for reporting a person’s progress, so it encourages personal responsibility. No personal data is ever collected from the user, and only avatars, challenges, and trophies-earned are stored.

The Challenge of Change

Making a lifestyle change can be hard, even when we really want to do it. It is a process that requires time, dedication, and support. While there are no shortcuts, many studies have shown that employing the following strategies leads to the most successful outcomes:

Make a Plan

Your plan is a map that will guide you on this journey of change. Think of it as an adventure. Plan the steps you will take to get from where you are to where you want to be.

Wellness War is a great place to start. There are ten different challenges to help someone reach their overall goals in a fun and engaging way. Each challenge has an objective – a plan to follow to reach the goal. For example, one challenge is called Eat the Rainbow. Its objective is to “add fruits and vegetables to two meals a day for one week.”

Start small

Reaching your overall goal can feel overwhelming. Break it down into small, simple, and achievable goals, and celebrate victories.

Wellness War challenges last for just one week. Each day, players “check-in” to self-report their progress using an emoji assessment scale and receive a helpful tip to help them succeed. If they participate throughout the week and complete the challenge, they win a trophy. Celebrating each victory keeps people engaged and “in the game”. Challenges can be repeated as many times as needed to effect or maintain lifestyle change.

Have a support system

Share your journey to keep you motivated and accountable.

Use Wellness War to challenge a friend, family, or staff member to stay motivated and accountable. Through the Wellness War app, each challenger can see how the other is doing through their daily check-ins. Players can participate in up to three active challenges at the same time.

If a challenge is not accepted, players can choose whether to continue on their own, try a different challenge, or try sending it to a different person.

Ten Challenges in All

Wellness War has ten challenges to choose from. They are:

• Eat the Rainbow – Add fruits and vegetables to two meals a day.
• Floss Like a Boss – Floss every day.
• Forty Winks – Get at least seven hours of sleep every day.
• Hot Stepper – Walk an extra 2,000 steps per day.
• Million Dollar Smile – Brush teeth every day.
• Snack Well – Eat healthy snacks every day.
• Stepping Star – Walk an extra 5,000 steps per day.
• The Art of Kindness – Do something kind for another person each day.
• Wean the Screen – Reduce your daily screen time by half every day.
• Wellness with Water – Drink more water each day.

Wellness War and the Move Your Way Initiative

The Office of Developmental Programs has announced a new initiative, called Move Your Way. The Move Your Way campaign includes tools, videos, and fact sheets to promote physical activity in a way that works for each individual, including tips that make it easier to get just a little more active!

Wellness War is a great tool to help people move their way! If you support someone with intellectual disabilities or autism, why not empower them to take charge of their own health? Encourage them to download Wellness War today and watch them challenge their way to a healthier tomorrow!

Wellness War is 100% FREE to download and use and it’s available for iPhone and Android phones.

Click or Scan the QR code to download to your mobile device.