Participants will receive a pedometer, workbook, partner, and 15 weekly phone group meetings.

A health behavior change intervention based on partner learning, utilizing low-tech media and a workbook.

The Healthy Heart Score is a lifestyle-based CVD prediction model that was developed using health data from 61,025 women in the Nurses' Health Study and 34,478 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, who were free of chronic disease in 1986 and followed for CVD for up to 24 years. The Healthy Heart Score is based on the diet and lifestyle factors that include smoking, weight, exercise, and intake of alcohol, fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts, sugary beverages, and red and processed meat. On a prospective study, women with higher predicted CVD risk based on the Healthy Heart Score had an 18-fold higher risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus,5-fold higher risk of hypertension, and 3-fold higher risk of hypercholesterolemia during 20 years.

The Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ) is a measure of Restrained, External, and Emotional eating. This questionnaire has good internal consistency and factorial validity as well as predictive validity for food consumption.

Pedometer steps (measured with the Omron pedometer Model HJ-320) will provide an objective measure of increased physical activity. Omron pedometers have been shown to demonstrate validity and reliability at various mounting positions in both healthy and overweight adults. Participants in all groups will be reminded to wear the pedometer for the week before each data collection point to assess average weekly step count. Intervention participants will also provide weekly step count data throughout the intervention. Measures will include average daily steps, as an objective measure of physical activity, and percentage change in steps, as an objective measure of change in physical activity level.

The Ministry of Health (as well as the World Health Organization) recommends engaging in at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity per week. Exercising at the level of 500 MET-minutes per week has been defined as the threshold for an average reduction of 20% to 30% in mortality risk and exercise may have comparatively increased benefits in women compared to men. Energy expenditure will be assessed by the self-administered Women's Health Initiative Physical Activity Questions (WHI-PAQ), measuring recreational physical activities. The Women's Health Initiative was a pivotal, prospective study of women's health, including the impact of health behavior on cardiovascular health54. The WHI PAQ has been validated compared to accelerometry and has been shown to be reliable. Metabolic equivalents (METs) will be calculated based on energy expenditure related to these activities using standardized classifications.

The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale-16 (DERS-16) is a brief measure of emotion regulation difficulties. This scale demonstrates good internal consistency, test-retest reliability, as well as convergent and discriminant validity.