Side salad or fries, sleep or caffeine, exercise or chill — no matter the ultimatum, it seems that we always have to make choices pertaining to our health. This can be particularly challenging for young adults who are faced with demanding schedules, limited options, lack of knowledge and small budgets.
So what are you to do? Join the fruvement and get fruved.
In a healthy nutshell, Fruved is a study simultaneous to an intervention with a goal of facilitating healthier lifestyles across campus.
“We’re trying to identify things our campus is doing well and have a discussion about what could make it healthier,” said Sarah Dahlman, a public health nutrition graduate student.
The project, which is a collaborative multi-state effort, began at UT with Sarah Colby, associate professor in public health nutrition, as the coordinating primary investigator.
Prior to starting the project, a common theme was identified. Students wanted to make healthier choices but often found that difficult to do. Now, students will hopefully be able to strive toward healthiness with greater ease.
In preparation for the fruvement and the health interventions taking place across campus this academic year, classes were offered during last spring semester to identify challenges and formulate strategies and solutions.
“We worked together on different teams and came up with interventions from students in the same classes across different states like South Dakota, West Virginia and Florida,” Dahlman said.
“We’ve empowered students who haven’t been trained in research to assess availability and variety of foods on our campus,” added Kristin Riggsbee, public health nutrition graduate student.
But Fruved isn’t just concerned with advocating for healthier food choices and more fruit and vegetable intake among students — they’re also working to promote overall health and wellness across a multitude of spectrums.
“We’re looking at sleep and hydration, sexual health, eating behaviors and patterns, fruit and vegetable intake, healthy body image, substance abuse, even safety and whatever effects your health … but really all of that is under the big umbrella of changing behavior and changing the environment,” Dahlman said.
And even though Fruved is only targeting freshmen, Dahlman believes that everybody on campus will benefit from these interventions.
One way non-participants might benefit is from an upcoming town hall meeting on Oct. 7 where anyone with ideas about how to make campus healthier can address key stakeholders and share their thoughts. The meeting will take place at 7 p.m. in the library auditorium.
Fruved is also utilizing social media channels, where they are sharing information about nutrition and overall well-being. Additionally, Fruved has a goal of having an impact that extends beyond the universities that are a part of the program. The plan is to take the peer mentor concept and work downward –so college students would mentor high school students, and high school students would mentor middle school students.
“That’s how we want to make this project sustainable over time,” Dahlman said. “We’re starting at the university level, but really where behavior change is going to happen is when they’re really young. So we’re going to try to take this design and just go downward with it.”
Fruved has also gained some national attention from Comedy Central’s Daily Show. And though it may seem a bit comedic to see people dressed as fruits and vegetables running around campus and doing yoga in open spaces, this lighthearted fun raises question marks that ultimately help to facilitate a conversation about serious, global issues pertaining to health.
“We have this huge issue, and it really can be fixed if we target the young population,” she added. “Then they grow up eating healthy because they got that education and these behavior changes when they were really young.”
But right now, the fruvement starts here at UT. Recruitment for the interventions lasts until Sept. 30, so freshmen interested in participating are encouraged to get in contact and to become involved.
For more information about recruitment or the town hall meeting on Oct. 7, contact Fruved at [email protected], and be sure to keep up with Fruved on social media to learn about other ways to get involved and maintain a healthy lifestyle.
