Obesity in college students is on the rise. According to the American College Health Association, the percentage of college students who are overweight or obese rose from 31.3 percent to 32.5 percent from 2008 to 2012. While that number doesn’t seem extremely significant, the percentage is steadily rising each year.
Being someone who has constantly struggled with maintaining a healthy weight, I know how important it is to eat healthy and exercise. That being said, I also know how difficult it is to find the motivation to get healthy, especially when it seems so far out of reach. For the U, starting a campus-wide fitness competition and healthy living initiative could be a great way to motivate all students to get healthier and develop healthy habits.
Many students don’t understand the implications of their eating and exercise habits. The idea is that college is a time for having fun, eating out and living off Ramen Noodles. The problem with this mindset is that the consequences of poor health choices follow students long past graduation. Students who decide to develop healthy habits will have a more fulfilling adulthood and will pass those healthy habits on to their families.
Like I said earlier, it is not quite that easy. Many students come into college with a tight budget, poor habits and little motivation to change. A campus-wide fitness competition would combat all of these roadblocks.
The competition would happen yearly over a semester or two with various prizes going out to those who lower their weight and fat percentage. The competition would also reward those who are underweight and striving to reach a healthy weight.
While a competition is a great way to get people motivated, it is not necessarily the best way to instill long-term habits in students. To combat this problem, the competition would be part of a larger health initiative that would offer fitness and cooking classes and wellness workshops, including a workshop devoted to eating healthy while on a tight budget. Students who attend these workshops would be entered into a drawing for other prizes. The competition along with the health initiative would be focused on building lifelong healthy habits for all students on campus.
In an article titled “Obesity on Campus,” Doctor of Education Philip B. Sparling said, “We have a special opportunity to tackle the problem of obesity on our campuses. For many young people, college is the first major step toward independence and charting their own courses … We can capitalize on this ripe-to-change period by encouraging students to improve eating and exercise habits and teaching them how to implement healthful changes.”
The U could help students implement healthy changes in their lives through a campus-wide fitness competition and healthy living initiative. These things would be a fun and effective way for students to get healthy while also building a foundation for a longer, happier life.