Oklahoma State University is after a title. No, not for football or basketball or even anything academic. Instead, OSU has put itself on the track to be America’s Healthiest Campus.

The quest to be America’s Healthiest started earlier this year with the implementation of updates like the campus’ new Reboot Center, a space designed to help students relax and get away from the stresses of student life. It opened to good reviews in March, and helped pave the way for additional health-centered initiatives.

With the same goal of improved student and faculty health in mind, in October, OSU hired a Chief Wellness Officer. OSU President Burns Hargis said “this new position emphasizes the commitment we have to the well-being of our students and employees as OSU strives to be America’s Healthiest Campus.”

More healthy changes came right on the heels of this new appointment: Within days, Oklahoma State announced a new on-campus food nutrition labeling system. This new system helps students make healthier eating choices by labeling more than 800 kinds of prepared foods with information about serving size, number of servings per package, ingredients, nutritional values and allergen information. Read the rest of this entry »

I have two dogs: a pug and a miniature pinscher. Nothing seems to cheer me up more than when I come home from school, or work, and find them excitedly awaiting my presence. They wag their tails and immediately beg for my a attention. Something about the way they lick my chin and demand to be petted makes me forget about all of the day’s stressors.

So, it’s no surprise to me that Tufts University is using dogs to ease exam woes on campus. The school brought in therapy dogs on Tuesday for students to have some stress-free time, amid the most stressful time of year: finals week.

“Every college student has stress around finals,” said resident director Michael Bliss, who came up with the idea of dog visits. “And taking a break out from that with something as easy and simple and loving as petting dogs is really helpful.”

Tufts University isn’t the only school using therapy dogs as stress-relieving activities. Bliss wanted to bring the dogs to campus after he participated in a similar program as an undergraduate at New York University.

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From childhood to senior year and beyond, students are facing an enormous amount of pressure to be over-achievers. The alarmingly high expectations come in from all angles: parents, teachers, coaches and school officials are weighing down hard on kids and some are afraid that they just can’t take the stress. Vicki Abeles, rookie film-maker and mother to a 12-year old with stress induced stomachaches, decided it’s time to acknowledge the corner we’re backing ourselves into.

We all want our young children to succeed, but round-the-clock activities and no down time is producing highly-stressed individuals. We simply cannot expect the next generation to be any closer to super-human than we are.

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