The Student Health Center and the Nutrition Peer Education Program will be launching an initiative this week called Health Campus 2020 to inform students about power foods and mindful eating.
They will have free raffles and give aways and offer information outside the Caf on Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Wednesday from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m., according to Health Center Director Nancy Safinick.
Safinick wrote in an email that staff and the student nutrition peer educators will focus on answering questions like how we get food to our brains, how we can get more energy from the foods we eat and how we can avoid brain drainers.
The American College Health Association created Health Campus 2020 as a parallel to the objectives of Healthy People 2020, which “provides science-based, 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans,” according to the Healthy People 2020 website, healthypeople.org.
The on-campus initiative includes members from the Student Health Center, the Counseling Center, Athletics, Housing and Residence Life, the Dean of Students, Campus Recreation, faculty and students.
The target initiatives are based on national health data.
“After comparing the performance of Pepperdine students to the national average on the National College Health Assessment survey data, improving nutritional and dietary habits was selected for the Healthy Campus 2020 initiative for 2014,” Safinick wrote.
The events next week and through the rest of the semester will provide information on the combinations of foods that serve as “power foods” and how to increase “mindful eating,” according to Safinick.
“The Student Health and Counseling Centers are committed to the objectives of Healthy Campus 2020 promoting the quality of life, healthy development, positive health behaviors and supporting efforts to increase academic success,” Safinick wrote.
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As published in the Jan. 16 issue of the Pepperdine Graphic.
