Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle Living on Campus

Revision and Reflection

For the assignment final for the semester I will be doing an intense revision on my website. I will incorporate suggestions from my professor from the feedback rubrics, the suggestions from my in class intensive peer review, as well as suggestions from my current classmates and our CEC into a final revision of my website. The topic of my website is Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle while living on Campus. Over the semester of this course I created not only blog posts, but I have designed a website, created a podcast, PSA, etc. Transitioning into college is not an easy thing to do, it is the most exciting, stressful, and emotional experience in one’s life.

A few specific changes and revision that was made in the final two weeks of this semester were going through my creative and founded images and making sure they all were cited correctly. I wanted to go through and look a little detail and fix a couple things in my web text such as, develop more work on the conclusion, not use as much from my bibliography, and revising the title.  Throughout the semester we’ve done several different assignments in order to get us prepared for our final touches on our websites, my website has changed over time by adding more and more relevant research and information to spread awareness of the lifestyle that comes along with living on a college campus. My website is more informational, helpful, and organized now than it was at first.

The feedback from my peers and professor has been very beneficial in several different ways. Comments from my peers would do more than just give encouragement but include suggestions and questions for me to answer throughout my work. Feedback given by Dr. Ashby allowed me to evaluate other sources that may be useful. It allowed me to answer questions that my audience may have about maintaining a healthy lifestyle on campus. Applying the feedback, I was given allowed me to fix minor details and add a few things that made my website more organized.

There is no project that I can think of that I disliked, there were a few assignments that I disliked throughout the process. I didn’t like that some of the work we had to do was difficult to understand and complete because it was out of my comfort zone. I’ve never designed a website before, so I was not sure of what I was doing sometimes. Also, seeing the assignments were worth one point just because it was a part of the process for my website. The project I enjoyed the most would have to be the entire website; it was fun and different. I have never created my own website, nor would I have ever thought about this if it was not for this class.

The different projects have changed the way I do research because I now will know to possibly include founded or creative images and vodcasts are informational. The PSA I chose to use as a source was one of my favorites. It was very resourceful and very relevant to the topic of my website. I really enjoyed this process of creating my website on WordPress, I would choose creating a blog page on WordPress rather than writing an 8-10-page paper. Given the chance to create my website will allow me to continue this resource for however long I would like.

I am a different person today than I were when I started this assignment because I am more educated of several different topics after giving feedback on my peer’s websites and my own. This project has changed the way I see myself in the world because I am now a resource for others to use if need be. If one needs motivation or tips on what to do in certain situations while living on a college campus trying to maintain healthy. My biggest challenge this semester was really digging for good sources for information so that everyone can look at my website and hopefully take something away from it. I was able to get past it by reading and applying suggestions and questions that were commented under my posts. I truly believe I gave this assignment my all and did the best work I could do. I am proud that I stepped out of my comfort zone with designing this website and pulled through to the finish line.

For the assignment final for the semester I will be doing an intense revision on my website. In this revision I incorporated suggestions from my professor from the feedback rubrics, the suggestions from my in class intensive peer review, as well as suggestions from my current classmates and our CEC into a final revision of my website. Overall, this experience was very exciting because you never knew what the next assignment was and how challenging it was going to be. The point of this reflection was to reflect on my WordPress website and my ability to communicate the ideas I have researched in various formats.

Transitioning into college is not an easy thing to do, it is the most exciting, stressful, and emotional experience in one’s life.  Throughout my freshman year, I noticed I could not stick to the routine I had before starting college.  While living on campus, your daily routine will change. It may take time but we will learn to adapt at some point in time. Being a college student can be a lot to handle at times and can cause you to take a couple of steps backward with physical and mental health. But that is okay because we all go through it. I want to be able to help you and get you through these setbacks and find a way that helps you overcome them. It is hard to eat healthy in college, not everyone has the right utensils in their dorm, nor do they have the room for it. Luckily in every dorm hall they have a certain number of communal kitchens for the residents. The only issue is, if I want to make a healthy breakfast I would have to go check out essentials for me to cook, cook, clean up, eat, and then proceed to get ready for class or what is first on the list for the day.

Once entering your freshman year of college, you hear people talking about gaining the “freshman fifteen.”  This can happen due to poor food choices at the upstairs case and even the fast-food options students can purchase with flex. Now I know that our decision on what we choose to eat is on ourselves, but the options to chose from are not always the best. Eastern Kentucky offers a good amount of fast food and a mini grocery store inside of the lower case. Students are allowed $300 max on our flex card. Flex is the money linked to our school ID to be used for meal swipes at Upper case and fast food located in Lower case. We can choose from Chick-fil-a, Subway, Moes, Panda Express, Steak and Shake, Starbucks, and Einstein’s. The upper case closes every day after 8 pm so if we want to save our flex dollars we have to make sure to eat at upper case before it closes but they do not always have the best options to pick from.  Complex food environments could require a new set of skills and mindsets to maintain a healthy diet plan that case can not always offer students. I will say that the upper case having a comfort food area that contains healthier options of food and a station to where you can create your own salad or sandwich/wrap.

On a positive note, a pro about living on campus at Eastern Kentucky University is that they just remodeled their Recreation Center. Every student enrolled can use the rec after showing ID and even open to the public but it is a $5 fee. It contains a sauna in both men and women locker rooms, four full basketball courts, indoor soccer, wide variety of workout classes you can sign up for, about three separate rooms for others to workout in private, and tons of equipment. I used the picture above to represent exercise, to maintain a healthy lifestyle you should try to exercise at least 3-4 times a week. Working out is a great way to stay healthy and burn off extra body fat that you want to lose. The only issue that college students run in to are not having enough time in the day to go to the gym but also finish your classes for the day and being able to finish assignments by assigned day and time. I think creating a schedule that includes what you must do throughout the week would be a good idea so that you can get everything done and take advantage of having a nice gym in close range. While working on assignments throughout the semester in English, I read an abstract that informed me about how there is evidence that shows a good amount of people experiencing poor physical health. The study was focused on mental and physical health of first year university students of 355 students, 244 females and 111 males (Hussain Rafat). Being enrolled in college is hard to eat healthy, at least until you can get in the swing of the new lifestyle. Many of students lack in motivation, and I became part of the many students at one point.

One thing that I feel is important that tags a long with this topic is self-care, is any activity that people do in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health. Although it is a simple concept in theory, it is something we often overlook. Self-care is key to improve mood and reduce anxiety. It is normal for people to find their own methods of self-care, with being in college whether it is your first semester or last, it is hard. When we feel unmotivated or overwhelmed that is when you need to do something to help you feel better, such as self-care. It can be working out, taking a nap, making a smoothie, doing a face mask, etc. In the blog “6 Ways to Live a Healthy Lifestyle in College,” Marquis states “the best way to motivate yourself is to live a better lifestyle by establishing a personal health goal.” (para 5). By using this quote, he is trying to give other people tips on ways to live a healthy lifestyle. Having to stress about class, test, finals, homework, jobs, and having a social life is a lot to have on your plate. It is hard to balance everything out but at the end of the day you need to make sure you are okay.

Mental health and self-care are very underestimated. In the Ted Talk, Caitlyn Roux says, “I did not know how to deal with all this pain, all these emotions so I started journaling,” (Roux 2:23).  The author is saying that one way to cope with certain issues could be to journal them. She also talks about what makes you, you? Many people define themselves based off their physical appearance, jobs, bank balance, the brand of clothing, and what others have to say about us. Allowing these things define you, you are allowing them to control and consume your life. Happiness is something you create for yourself and that is something that could be tampered with throughout college.  

The conclusion to this web text is that self-care is underestimated and there are ways around the lifestyle you live in college, but you can still maintain healthy. There is a need for things to be altered and more resources for college students on advice over the right eating. We can see that living the college life can become tough and overwhelming mentally and physically, but it is going to be okay.

Work Cited

CANTO, ANGELA I. 1.acanto@fsu.ed., et al. “College Students in Crisis: Prevention, Identification, and Response Options for Campus Housing Professionals.” Journal of College & University Student Housing, vol. 43, no. 2, Jan. 2017, pp. 44–57

Hussain, Rafat, et al. “Physical and Mental Health Perspectives of First Year Undergraduate Rural University Students.” BMC Public Health, vol. 13, no. 1, Oct. 2013, pp. 1–11. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1186/1471-2458-13-848.

M., Marquis. “6 Ways to Live a Healthy Lifestyle in College.” CollegeXpress,

Malan, Hannah, et al. “Challenges, Opportunities, and Motivators for Developing and Applying Food Literacy in a University Setting: A Qualitative Study.” Journal of the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics, vol. 120, no. 1, Jan. 2020, pp. 33–44. EBSCOhost do: 10.1016/j.jand.2019.06.003.

Mehri, Ali, et al. “Health Promoting Lifestyle and Its Determinants Among University Students in Sabzevar, Iran.” International Journal of Preventive Medicine, Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd, 14 Apr. 2016,

Roux, Caitlyn, narrator. “Self-Love, be Intentional.” Tedx Talk, 2017

Clemmens, Donna, et al. “Learning and Living Health: College Students’ Experiences with an Introductory Health Course.” Journal of Nursing Education, SLACK Incorporated, 1 July 2004, http://www.healio.com/nursing/journals/jne/2004-7-43-7/{ac164a74-96df-4403-80f4-b67e5cc8ec33}/learning-and-living-health-college-students-experiences-with-an-introductory-health-course#divReadThis.

This source is considered a scholary article. The article is about how a college campus provides microcosm of th health issues facing in the nation. It describes a research study that course faculty conducted during the first year of implementation, evaulating the coursework and related activities influencing students’ health related behaviors.

This article helps me by providing this case study where they try to focus on promoting healthy lifestyle tips to help decrease rates of depression, diabetes, anxiety, and sucicide. I believe this article is accurate, because the author has a PhD. I think this article shows some connections to my topic and the argument I am protraying.

Mehri, Ali, et al. “Health Promoting Lifestyle and Its Determinants Among University Students in Sabzevar, Iran.” International Journal of Preventive Medicine, Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd, 14 Apr. 2016,

This article is about how a healthy lifestyle is a major strategy to promote current health status. A random sample of 500 sstudents on a college campus protcipated in the cross-sectional study. There was a total of 53.4% of the 500 are physically active in some way wheter it is sports, going on walks, or working out. Significant differences were found by gender.

This article can help me by providing information about what are some resources students may be able to reach out to for living a healthier lifestyle on campus. I can give people ideas on how to develop health promotion programs that support health choices with college students. I find this article pretty accurate, I feel like it helps due to them having a study shown on to help support my topic and the arguement I am blogging about.

1. I want my website’s overall message to be, you can get through tough times. I want people to be able to relate and apply any information they find useful, to their daily lives.

2. Background or supporting information my reader needs to know is that the information used towards my blog post are mainly studies shown on how the on campus life can affect you’re mental, physical, and emotional stability.

3. The main points or subpoints that I need to address are
– steps you can do throughout your daily life to maitain a healthy lifestyle
– tips on how to manage stress, anxiety, and depression
– advice or other peoples opinions (have to live on campus)
– pros and cons of living on campus and staying as healthy as possible

4. Which sources connect to your subpoints? How? Explain this below:
– the first main point can connect to the first source from bibliography #1
– the second main point can connec to the first source from biblipgrphy #2
– the third main point can connect to the second source from biblipgrphy #2
– the fourth main point can connect to the second source from bibliography #1

5. – how to maitain a healthy lifestyle in your daily life
“The study was focused on mental and physical health of first year university students of 355 students, 244 females and 111 males.”

– how to manage stress, anxiety, and depression
“The closer you become to yourself the more room you have to grow and the best gift you can give yourself. You’re allowing yourself to grow on own terms and putting yoursself as a priority.”

– advice from the “insiders”
“The transition to college can be a rough time for a lot of people, from having to pick a major to strugging to meet academic demands. One of the biggest crisis college students may face is trying to fit in the social clicks around us.”

– pros and cons of living on campus and staying as healthy as possible
” Food literacy among college students is not well understood, although this study focused more on a range of challenges for college students to apply those skills in the university environment.”

6. I could consider using images from my creative and founded images from rpevious assignements.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z7q3IiQzrfXvYpviR6jX_rwzOE0qzNCQ/view?usp=sharing

Transcript:

PODCAST SCRIPT FOR ENGLISH

                Throughout your life you live a very routine schedule for example you wake up get ready for school, go to school throughout the day, come home round 3:00 (4:15 for elementary kids) and go outside and play or get your homework done, eat dinner and go to bed to start all over again until it’s the weekend. And for so long you’ve always known for your day to go as planned accordingly but when it comes to the end of your high school career you move on to college. Now whether you decided to stay in your hometown for college or you decided to live the on-campus experience, your routine may differ. I believe once someone goes to college, living on campus can affect several things. It can trigger one’s anxiety, depression, and even becoming home sick.

Today I have my sister Macie sitting with me, I wanted to ask her some opinion-based questions from her point of view with living on-campus for college.

• “how has your transition from being at home for grades K-12 to living on campus?”
• “do you feel like living on campus can play a role with your mental health? And what about your Physical health/appearance?”
• “how do you handle your stress or is there any method you have when times get a lot to handle?”

To end this podcast, I want to say thank you Macie for allowing me to include you into my podcast and to ask you some kind o personal questions. Now I really hope that after listening to this, it has allowed you to take in some new information on how to deal with some of the key points from your transition from living in your hometown to living on campus. Not only do I hope you gathered information, but I also hope this gave you some reassurance that you are not alone and you’re not the only one going through the stressful and emotional transition. Try to take this as advice and apply it to your daily life when needed.

Sources

Malan, Hannah, et al. “Challenges, Opportunities, and Motivators for Developing and Applying Food Literacy in a University Setting: A Qualitative Study.” Journal of the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics, vol. 120, no. 1, Jan. 2020, pp. 33–44. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.jand.2019.06.003.

Hussain, Rafat, et al. “Physical and Mental Health Perspectives of First Year  Undergraduate Rural University Students.” BMC Public Health, vol. 13, no. 1, Oct. 2013, pp. 1–11. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1186/1471-2458-13-848.

My experience with downloading Audacity was struggle honestly, it took me about 5 – 7 minutes to get it all the way downladed. Trying to find the right one to download, then tryong to follow directions but still keep moving forward. Once I got it downloaded I started to play around, its kind of hard but if i keep playing with it I should be fine. Im not a high technology person so I dont know exactly what to do but I will try my best to meet the requirements for this assignment. \

I have asked my two older sister to be in my podcast. I chose my sister Macie because she is currently enrolled at Eku so she is getting the on campus experience and want to see if she knows or personally experience(d) all the pros and cons of living on campus but also struggling to maintain a healthy lifestyle. SHe has already agreed to doing it but time is limited with her having to babysit throughout the day.

I chose “asleep with the sun” to use for my background music during the podcast. I chose this because it gives off a very mellow vibe but also very chill so I feel like it wouldnt be a distraction while trying to record over it. When others listen to my Podcast I want to get their attention and them to actually listen to the words I’m saying.

I plan on recording maybe Thursday afternoon/evening due to my sisters having to work and tkae care of other things first. I plan on typing out what I’m going to say for my podcast. I think it will take an hour or less to get everything I need done before recording my podcast.

Roux, Caitlyn, narrator. “Self-Love, be Intentional.” Tedx Talk, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCNOJmmHLkQ&t=376s

This source is about how to use Self Love and making sure you do what makes you happy. The cited source above is a Podcast based source, I would say that it could be considered a popular entry. Caitlyn Roux begins to talk about the different things people use to define themselves. The closer you become to yourself the more room you have to grow and the best gift you can give yourself. You’re allowing yourself to grow on own terms and putting yoursself as a priority.

With the speaker talking about her own experience with self love and giving her testimony makes this source more reliable. Caitlyn Roux is a 21 years-old model and also a motivational sspeaker. After reading an interview post on her I learned that she gives others very good advice to live by but also is very strong for being able to stand up and tell her story, let alone trying to help others who could be going through the same thing she went through. I felt as if this was a very important subject that tags along with my blog topic.

CANTO, ANGELA I. 1.acanto@fsu.ed., et al. “College Students in Crisis: Prevention, Identification, and Response Options for Campus Housing Professionals.” Journal of College & University Student Housing, vol. 43, no. 2, Jan. 2017, pp. 44–57. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip&db=eue&AN=125014593&site=eds-live&scope=site.

This source is a academic journal, so this would fall uner the category of a scholarly article. The author talks about several different categories on college students and the scenarios they could face during their time enrolled. The transition to college can be a rough time for a lot of people, from having to pick a major to strugging to meet academic demands. One of the biggest crisis college students may face is trying to fit in the social clicks around us.

Dr. Angela Canto is a Psychologist in Tallahassee, Florida. Angela specializes her career in anxiety, depression, and trauma/ptsd. Once I read her biography and did some research, her qualifications and experience do apply to this topic I’m focusing on. With all of the evidence from the articlecited above, that shows how many people deal with the tough transformation from life before college and once moved onto a college campus. Mental health is something college students can struggle with soon after making that big change.

Generating Plan: I think one of the things I want to address forsure is more information over self love and focusing on what makes you happy. I’m hoping this assignment will bare with me because I’m not a pro on Podcasts. I feel like a very big part of podcasts are getting people to respond and communicate back with you, expressing their thoughts and beliefs.

Sources: I would probably use other podcasts and the one used for the critical podcast assignment. Another source I could use are my bibliography sources from precious assignments.

Atmosphere: I would want my atmosphere to probably be at the picnic tables in my backyard, with the sun out and its pretty outside. If i was to play music it would have to be more o a soft mellow type of vibe. Most likely will not have any music playing in the background f I’m outside.

The Podcast talks about “what makes you, you?” Caitlyn used herslef as an example of how people tend to define themselves over our hysical appearence, jobs, bank balance, and what others have to say about us. From 16 she started to obsess over her weight, she wanted to look like the cover girl of a magazine. She had the diet of only salads and event went to the extreme of harming her body over the foods she has eaten. She “needed” the thigh-gap and she “needed the thin waist. After her relationhip ended she started to realize she needs to do what makes her happy and to find herslef again. she began journaling her breakup, wrote down her feelings and thoughts. She put quotes all around her room. In high school she let three things define her;other peoples opinions, her relationship and her weight. Happiness is something you create for yourself, by yourself, on your own terms.

The title of the podcast episode makes me think that I’m about to here someones testimony over Self Love. I feel as if the creator wanted to share her experience and how far she has came and that other people out there that feel at their lowest point, can get through this. The thing I like the most about this podcast is that, this is a very important topic in my research for my blog. Self Love is something is a big aspect everyone needs in their life. The main of the podcast was to spread awareness on how having self love is what allows you to have happieness in your life. Also that you need to know what makes you, you and that other peoples opinions do not define who you are. I would say this podcast was a success, it recieved 889k views, 36k likes and 360 dislikes.

2 Sources:

The first source I chose was https://www.branfordhall.edu/5-ways-to-maintain-a-healthier-lifestyle/, it tells you some inside tips of what you can do to live a healthy lifestyle. Gives step to step examples.

Pegschools. “5 Ways to Maintain a Healthier Lifestyle.” Branford Hall Career Institute, 28 Aug. 2019, http://www.branfordhall.edu/5-ways-to-maintain-a-healthier-lifestyle/.

The second source I chose to use was https://www.collegexpress.com/articles-and-advice/student-life/blog/6-ways-live-healthy-lifestyle-college/ it addresses setting personal goals with yourself and that is something a lot of people look over.

M., Marquis. “6 Ways to Live a Healthy Lifestyle in College.” CollegeXpress, http://www.collegexpress.com/articles-and-advice/student-life/blog/6-ways-live-healthy-lifestyle-college/.

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