SU Celebrates Health Awareness Month

Unhealthy eating and physical inactivity are dangerous behaviors that have a critical impact on a student’s health.
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) nearly 50% of young people aged 12-21 are not vigorously active on a regular basis and even more have unhealthy eating habits causing nearly 300,000 preventable deaths each year.
The CDC reveals that physical inactivity is more prevalent among African-Americans and Hispanics than Caucasians. For these reasons, the American Dietetic Association (ADA) and members of Southern University’s Human Nutrition and Food program have established a nutrition and physical fitness project for students during the month of March.
Initiated in March 1973, National Nutrition Month is a nutrition education and information campaign sponsored annually by the American Dietetic Association. The campaign was designed to focus attention on the vitality of making healthy food choices and maintaining good physical activity habits.
“Here in the department of family and consumer sciences, we have celebrated National Nutrition Month for 15 or more years. This celebration has always be positive and very informative for students involved,” said Cheryl Atkinson, internship coordinator and associate professor of advanced dietetics.
At Southern University, many health campaigns were designed with the help of students majoring in dietetics, in response to the growing of public interest in nutrition.
“Through this annual event, students have become more health conscious and people are more apprehensive on what they eat and have become more physically active,” said Brenda Barrow, a senior dietetics major from Los Angeles.
Most of the activities started at the beginning of this month will continue for the duration of the semester and include physical fitness/aerobics promotion, healthy weight and fitness promotion, milk promotion and nutrition and health seminars.
“Personally, I think National Nutrition Month should be celebrated more than one month out of the year. As a health conscious student remaining healthy is so important,” said Shynedra Douglas, a junior dietetics major from Baton Rouge.
In a full effort to make Southern University a healthy campus, the department of Family and Consumer Sciences and the American Dietetic Association are striving to increase knowledge on how healthy living can save lives.