Encouraging Healthy Lifestyles in College Students Students heading off to college for the first time might be thinking about how they will ...

Encouraging Healthy Lifestyles in College Students

Students heading off to college for the first time might be thinking about how they will do in their classes, their social life and what it will be like to live away from home for the first time. Too often, they don't think very much about how they will approach healthy living. It's common and even normal to feel indestructible when you're young, but the stresses and lifestyle associated with being a college student can take their toll. There are steps students can take to cultivate healthier habits and ways that schools can better support them in those habits, and these will provide benefits not just in the next few years but for the rest of their lives.

Addressing Major Issues

Not all college students come from secure family situations and have resources they can fall back on in difficulty. Administrators should make an effort to connect students who are struggling with getting enough to eat or keeping a roof over their heads. You can review a guide on how housing insecurity can impact college students and the importance of having a safe place to sleep for this population. 

Telehealth can be one way to help ensure that they have access to health services even if they are from a nontraditional population because it can be available to them 24/7 and not just during limited daytime hours. Whether they are dealing with major structural issues like homelessness, problems with anxiety and depression or a combination, they may be able to get the help they need via telehealth.

Food Choices

The campus food program should offer a variety of healthy choices for students who have different needs, including those who might be vegetarian or vegan or who may need gluten-free food or other special dietary considerations. Campuses could also offer free resources about nutrition to help them make better choices. Take advantage of these resources as they will be able to help you stick to your goal of making healthy lifestyle changes. A campus-wide wellness program could provide information about this and other aspects of healthy living to help ensure that students know what they need to do.

Prioritizing Sleep

This can be a tough one to convince college students about. After all, the quintessential image of this group is someone doing an all-nighter, studying in the library or at home, brewing many pots of coffee. If it isn't school keeping them awake it's their social life, staying out all night at parties. Fear of missing out can be a very real thing, and they might feel compelled to try to cram as much living as they can into the next four years. 

The problem is that a lack of sleep can lead to many other issues even in the young and healthy. While it might not be possible to convince them to have a regular time for going to bed and getting up or that they need somewhere on the order of seven to nine hours of sleep nightly, they can be encouraged to acknowledge the importance of rest and sleep and to try to practice good sleep hygiene. Resources that can help with insomnia and other sleep disorders can also be helpful.