Minding Our Bodies is a three-year project (2008-2011). Our goal is to increase capacity within the community mental health system in Ontario to promote active living and healthy eating for people with serious mental illness to support recovery.

Our provincial mental health promotion program serves as an “incubator” to help mental health service providers in Ontario, together with community partners, develop and deliver evidence-based physical activity and healthy eating programs, improve access to local resources, and promote social inclusion.

Why is this project important?

People with serious mental illness are at high risk for chronic physical conditions associated with sedentary behaviour, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease. At the same time, mental illness can influence a person’s health behaviour. Studies indicate that depression, for example, negatively impacts a person’s nutritional choices, their commitment to exercise, and adherence to medical therapies. Choices around diet, exercise, smoking and treatment adherence can all have a serious impact on the state of one’s physical health. To compound the issue, psychiatric medications can cause significant weight gain, and a high percentage of people with serious mental illness are smokers, often as a means of combatting the side-effects of medication.

Research evidence also shows that increased physical activity can have significant positive effects in preventing chronic disease, improving chronic disease outcomes and supporting recovery from mental illness. Exercise can alleviate primary symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as secondary symptoms such as low self-esteem and social withdrawal. Yet despite the known benefits, physical activity interventions are not commonplace or well integrated with other services delivered by community mental health care providers in Ontario.

Who is guiding the project?

An advisory committee has been established to guide the project. Advisory committee members include the project partners — Mood Disorders Association of Ontario, Nutrition Resource Centre, YMCA Ontario and York University — and representatives from a broad array of stakeholders.

For more information, see Our Partners.

What are the project deliverables?

The project deliverables will include training for mental health workers, consumer leaders, and volunteers; a toolkit and online resource to support program development; a six-month pilot project in three community settings; and a forward-looking strategy to implement the program across the province.

The training and toolkit will support a variety of implementation scenarios, rather than a single, fixed program. Community mental health providers will be expected to work in partnership with local stakeholders and to customize their physical activity program to make use of local resources.

The training and toolkit will be piloted in six communities. A one-day “spring training” workshop will be delivered to all pilot staff and volunteers, to prepare them for the pilots. See Pilot Projects for more information.

The project website will be designed as a vehicle for knowledge exchange, to share best practices and provide tools to support implementation province-wide, as well as facilitate networking among community mental health providers.

A communications strategy will be developed to raise awareness of the project, engage the broader community and share project learnings. Communications activities will include the creation of program branding and production of a bi-annual project newsletter.

How will the project be evaluated?

An evaluation consultant will be engaged to develop a detailed evaluation plan, create the necessary evaluation tools, train pilot coordinators and staff, assess the development and implementation of the project and look at project outcomes to identify whether the project has made a difference. Learnings from the evaluation process will be applied to improve the provincial mental health promotion program and inform the strategy for future implementation.