Here’s to your health (program)!
Thanks to a sizable grant, the Health Education and Wellness Department at Mississippi State University will unveil a new project this fall in hopes to make maintaining a healthy lifestyle as simple as possible for the campus and the community.
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Mississippi awarded “MSU on the Move” $562,485 to promote a healthier culture and to invest in ways to give individuals convenient options to improve that culture.
Most of the grant money will be allocated for construction of a one-mile track that will circle Chadwick Lake, behind the Sanderson Center on campus, but the program will also offer two nine-week exercise and nutrition programs at the beginning of each semester and a Mobile Kitchen Unit that will provide healthy cooking demonstrations on campus once a month. The two nine-week programs will be flanked by a pre- and post-health screening so participants can track their progress.
Director of the Health Education and Wellness Department, Joyce Yates said because Mississippi continues to lead the nation in obesity and sedentary lifestyles, this project is important not only to the future of the students, but to the state’s as well.
“Our main target audience is the students,” she said “However because this is such a large grant we see we have the opportunity to work with the entire Starkville community and we think that is a big opportunity.”
Through health screenings, she said the Health Education and Wellness Department has found some startling statistics.
“It’s no secret, obesity is such a large problem in Mississippi. When we have obese people we have more diabetes more, high blood pressure,” Yates said. “We were astounded at the number of students with high blood pressure. We knew the Body Mass Index’s would be high, but the high blood pressure was a surprise.”
Every three years the university gives National College Health Assessment, a questionnaire aimed at gauging a university’s health status.
According to the Spring 2011 National College Health Assessment, only 14.9 % of MSU students reported participating in moderate-intensity cardio or aerobic exercise for at least 30 minutes within the past 7 days, and 73% of students reported eating only 0-2 servings of fruits or vegetables per day.
Yates said the assessment given in 2011 did not return the number of participants she would have liked to have seen, but that it provided a good random sample.
“That is kind of scary to think that many people don’t meet the guidelines,” she said.
Both Yates and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation want to see long lasting results: a community and campus that have adopted healthy habits that are easy to sustain.
“What we want to see at MSU and in Starkville, is when people come to this town, they see people exercising all the time, they eat at restaurants that want to serve healthy food, we want them to see us making it a priority,” she said. “People become intentional about making the right choices and making those choices consistently.”
Consistency is the key to benefiting from this project, Yates said, added that the project’s website, set to launch Aug. 1, will contribute to that consistency with constant updates and a monthly Super Dawg Health Champion selected for their success in committing to a beneficial lifestyle.
“We think the health champion is a great way to motivate people through other’s success stories,” Yates said. “Seeing your peers succeed can give you a real boost.”
Above all else, Yates said the goal is to positively change the culture in Starkville, and to make those changes overly convenient.
“We want to show Blue Cross Blue Shield that we are serious about this,” she said.
“If this is trouble for the students that aren’t going to do it. We want it to be easy for someone to get healthy.
“We are planning, we are going to implement, we are going to evaluate and we will make the changes necessary to fit this campus. We can’t wait to launch.”
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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