Healthy Campus 2020: A Case Study

Wellness is a lifestyle that helps the individual to fulfil a high level of well-being. Wellness programs are committed to make a positive change in the quality of student’s lives by encouraging them to participate in programs, activities, and services that impact their health and wellness. The main goals of Healthy Campus 2020 are promote the quality of students’ life and improve students’ healthy behaviors. Their key missions are “finding current and ongoing nationwide health enhancement priorities in education process; increase campus community awareness and understanding of determinants of health, disease, and disability; and identify and promote relevant assessment, research, and data collection needs (American College Health Association,
2015). Healthy Campus 2020 is a program associated with Healthy People 2020, the national health promotion plan for improving the health of all Americans (American College Health Association, 2015). Several studies have identified that the health education among college students is particularly important because the college years represent an important transition to adulthood. Students in this period develop behaviors that may either enhance their health or develop many chronic diseases. Adopting healthy lifestyles in young adulthood is associated with the low heart disease risk in middle age (Liu, Daviglus, Loria, Colangelo, Spring, Moller, Lloyd-Jones, 2012) and also helps the students to carry them to the adult life.
Wellness programs at colleges
Healthy lifestyle and wellness are important elements of having a healthy life.
Wellness is “an active process through which people become aware of, and make choices toward, a more successful existence” through the balance of spiritual, occupational, social, physical, intellectual and emotional dimensions (National Wellness Institute, 2014, para. 6). Wellness is a vital concept for everyone in order to have a healthy lifestyle, a good physical and mental health, improve personal relationships, as well as increase satisfaction and joy (Iona College, 2014). Wellness programs have defined as programs committed to promote and enhance the physical, interpersonal, emotional, and spiritual wellness of students by offering a multitude of resources, activities, and programs to assist students in functioning optimally across all dimensions of their lives (Iona College,
2014).
A healthy lifestyle is as an important determinant of health status and has become a researcher concern in research interest worldwide (Wang, Xing, Wu, 2013). The adoption’s time of healthy lifestyles is essential because unhealthy lifestyles among young people are strongly related to unhealthy lifestyles in adulthood (Wang, Xing, Wu, 2013). Healthy lifestyle factors include good diet, free of tobacco, free of alcohol or other drugs use, healthy weight, and exercise regularly (National Business Group on Health, 2015). All these factors are responsible for 80 percent in decreasing the risk of developing the most common chronic diseases such as, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes (National Business Group on Health, 2015).
Colleges are important places for promoting student’s behaviors (Lowry, Galuska, Fulton, Wechsler, Kann, Collins, 2000).
Targeting college students will provide an opportunity for reaching large numbers of young adults through education and prevention programs that promote healthy behaviors (Lowry, Galuska, Fulton, Wechsler, Kann, Collins, 2000). “In the United States, more than 12 million students, the majority (57%) of whom are between 18 and 24 years of age, are enrolled in 3,600 colleges and universities” (Racette, Deusinger, Strube, Highstein, Deusinger, 2005, p. 250, para. 3). Moreover, the educational setting can also offer unique chances to positively impact eating habits, physical activity, and other behaviors of large numbers of students (Lowry, Galuska, Fulton, Wechsler, Kann, Collins, 2000). Research suggested that the most reachable population in whom assessment and intervention are effective may be college students (Racette, Deusinger, Strube, Highstein, Deusinger, 2005). In addition, adopting a healthy lifestyle may help college students to deal more successfully with daily academic stress and reduce their risk of developing chronic diseases (ferrera,
2009).