Chantelle Fowler and Dr. Stefinee Pinnegar, Educational Foundations

In 2000, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released Healthy People 2010. This document sets forth 476 national objectives for bettering the health of the people of the United States. These then lead to two overall goals of 1) increasing the quality and years of healthy life and 2) eliminating health disparities. That same year, the American College Health Association created Healthy Campus 2010 as a companion to aid the nation in reaching these goals. Of the 476 national objectives, 178 are college specific, covering topics in all areas of holistic health (American College Health Association, 2000). In response to this, many institutions of higher education—including Brigham Young University—have worked to implement programs to aid student populations in reaching the goals set forth by Healthy Campus 2010.

One especially vulnerable population on college campuses, in almost all respects, is college freshmen. Most first-year students equate entering college with personal freedom and opportunities to make choices, including choices that affect their health and academic success (Leamnson, 1999). Freshman Academy, a learning communities program developed and implemented at Brigham Young University in the 1990s, works with freshmen to help them make good choices and build a strong foundation for their college career. This research project aimed to increase our understanding of the best ways to teach first-year students about healthy lifestyle choices and behavior change, while also looking at the link between health and academic success within this population.

With the help of my mentor and Freshman Academy staff, I researched health issues and reviewed many of the health-related classes about health that are being taught on campus to find the best practices for teaching health and behavior change. We then applied these research based practices to the needs of BYU freshmen, and tried out pieces of an evolving curriculum in Student Development classes from Winter 2008—Summer 2008.

By Fall 2008, we had developed a fully articulated curriculum for a freshman seminar focusing on the dimensions of wellness, as identified by the National Wellness Institute [NWI] (part of the National Institutes of Health). These dimensions include social health, mental/emotional health, physical health, intellectual health, and spiritual health (NWI, 1979). The course, titled University 101, was also focused on the theme of disciple-scholarship as discussed in the freshman summer reading, Learning in the Light of Faith (Eyring, 2008), and Henry B. Eyring’s 1997 devotional address A Child of God which defines the disciple-scholar as one who welcomes correction, keeps commitments, works hard, helps others, and overcomes resistance. The integrative seminar was part of the Science and Society: Biology Is Life learning community, in which a cohort of 80 students attended the same classes.

At the beginning of Fall 2008, these 80 students were asked to take an online survey from the NWI about their current health habits. An additional 40 students in the Speaking of Biology and Society learning community (containing the same classes, but excluding University 101 and including public speaking) were also asked to take the survey to provide a control group. After the students took the survey, they were directed to a webpage giving them a health rating of “excellent,” “good,” or “needs improvement.” This page also showed them a graphic comparison of their health habits with those of the other students who took the survey, enabling the students to see the areas where they could improve.

Throughout the semester, the students discussed each of the areas of health and their relation to disciple-scholarship, and in the fifth week of the semester, students began a behavior change project. At this time, students were assigned to work on their intellectual health and chose from any of the other four areas of health to work on. They developed a rubric, detailing what good, better, and best health entails. They then wrote an action plan about how to improve from their current state of health to the best state of health. Throughout the rest of the semester, students applied the traits of disciple-scholarship to help them achieve their goals. Each week of the semester, students turned in written reflections about their experiences with health and making behavior changes. Students also took a weekly survey about academic habits that are predictors of academic success. At the end of the semester, students made a poster presentation, with an accompanying oral explanation, about what they had learned throughout the semester and about the changes they had made. They also turned in a final learning paper about their experiences. The last week of classes in Fall 2008, the students re-took the NWI health survey they had taken at the beginning of the semester.

Final findings from the project are currently unavailable. We are still in the process of analyzing the surveys and doing qualitative analysis of the students’ course work. An initial review of data suggests that student health correlates with academic success—that as student health habits stay constant or change over time, so will their predictors of academic success. Further, it indicates that although students may not have made drastic changes in their health habits in one semester, the course will have started them down the path of behavior change (Prochaska & Norcross, 1994) and will have provided them with the tools to make the changes that will lead them to embrace and live a healthy life style.

References

• American College Health Association. (2000). Healthy Campus 2010. Retrieved October 13, 2007, from http://www.acha.org.
• Eyring, H.B. (1997). A child of God. Retrieved December 27, 2008, from http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=2940
• Eyring, H.B. (2008). Learning in the light of faith. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book.
• Leamnson, R. (1999). Thinking about teaching and learning: Developing habits of learning with first year college and university students. Sterling, Virgina: Stylus Publishing.
• National Wellness Institute. (1979). The six dimensional wellness model. Retrieved February 29, 2008, from http://www.nationalwellness.org.
• Prochaska, J.O. & Norcross, J.C., et al. (1994). Changing for good: A revolutionary six-stage program for overcoming bad habits and moving your life positively forward. New York: Avon Books.
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2000, November). Healthy people 2010. 2nd ed. With Understanding and Improving Health and Objectives for Improving Health. 2 vols. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.