WILTON – The path to better health may start with simple steps … simple enough that anyone can do them.

That’s the intent of GOAL-Simple Steps to Better Health. The new program offered by the Healthy Community Coalition offers a free series of eight sessions to help participants feel better and take control of their health by improving diet, increase exercise and gaining self-respect.

GOAL, an acronym for Get Out and Live, was developed to help people make changes such as increasing fruit and vegetable consumption, physical activity, decreasing the use of sugar, stress control and living a healthier lifestyle. Small groups meet weekly for two hours in a fun, sharing and social atmosphere, said Lesa Rose, GOAL program coordinator on Tuesday.

A couple of pilot sessions have been held this fall, Rose said, including an after school group for seventh- and eighth-graders in Jay and Livermore Falls Middle Schools. More groups will form in January and February, she said.

Participants set their own goals to make changes, said Sandy Richard, who has been facilitating a group this fall. The weekly goal may be as simple as to drink more water, use less salt, add stretches or even clean the laundry off the treadmill, she said.

Groups of usually less than 12 and as small as four meet to share ideas and recommendations while discussing different topics each week. At the meetings, participants can choose to share a potluck meal with healthy recipes supplied. They also participate in stretching and breathing exercises, music relaxation, stress busters and physical activity.

One additional benefit realized from the group, the organizers said, is that it combats social isolation and how that affects a person’s well being. The buddy system works best, they said, and joining with a friend of spouse is encouraged.

Group members don’t want to stop at the end of the session, said Nicole Ditata, and members have become friends who sometimes make plans to get up at 5:30 a.m. and go walk together.

While Richard’s class is all women in a similar age group, the first GOAL session included more couples. Men participated and gained from it too, she said.

The youth group includes 16 middle grade students who have been meeting every week after school, Ditata said. Usually numbers on this type of thing dwindle but they haven’t seen it with students being challenged with a similar curriculum.

Students set goals to cut out soda and add milk to their diets or go sliding instead of working on the computer. After providing a healthy snack, the students are involved with some type of physical activity that involves every student.

While the GOAL groups are not a diet or weight reduction program, Rose said, they are a strategy for promoting good nutrition and increasing physical activity to reduce the number of overweight and obese people in Greater Franklin County.

After receiving a federal health outreach grant from the Department of Health and Human Services in 2005, an advisory board including physicians and nutritionists was formed. A variety of diet books and information was read to see what does and doesn’t work, she said. There’s not a lot of evidence that there is sustainable weight loss with these methods. Everything from hypnosis to programs like Weight Watchers were studied, she added. Three focus groups were held to determine barriers that affect living healthy lifestyles. Then 380 local people were interviewed and data collected to establish the GOAL curriculum.

For more information, call 645-3136 or online www.fchn.org/GOAL