Students encouraging students, peers helping peers, friends educating friends, this is the idea behind The Be Well Hut student wellness program on campus.
Auburn Health Promotions and Wellness Services brought this new outreach program to campus this semester. Each week the program hosts a different theme to promote wellness and health for the students.
Eric Smith, director of HPWS, and Brittany Loper, former health promotion specialist, wanted to bring a peer health education program to Auburn, so they visited schools around the nation that had a similar idea to find out more.
"We then talked with our learning communities in the fall and said, 'Hey, this is our idea, do you think it would be something Auburn students would like and participate in?'" Smith said. "After we got good feedback we decided to pursue it."
From there they got volunteers to run the program and have two student co-directors, Lisa Gane, senior in HESB, and Adam Sturdivant, junior in UNSM. The program is made up of assistant directors, team leaders and team members.
Each team leader is responsible for a different topic and every week they lead the hut in activities. The topics range from substance use to body image and even mental health.
Thursday, Feb. 14 was the hut's first appearance on the concourse. The theme was healthy relationships; they passed out buttons and informational flyers.
"There is usually an activity so we took an expo board out there and wrote 'what does a healthy relationship mean to you?'" Gane said. "People would write whatever they wanted and then we would take their picture and tweet it from our account."
Gane said that the topic for each week tries to tie in with the students. For example, the week before spring break the hut will be promoting skin care and talking about alcohol use.
Last week's theme was heart health. The goal was to help students find their own personal level of intensity they need to reach while exercising.
"From my experience, the main thing people struggle with while trying to lose weight and stay in shape is they don't know how hard to push themselves, so we had people on the concourse jump roping to calculate their max heart rate to figure out what they need to reach while working out," Sturdivant said.
Sturdivant said that sometimes it takes a while for students to get used to things, but all in all they have had good feedback and participation.
The program wants to promote health and put it out there so students are more aware of their choices. Gane and Sturdivant went on the HPWS Be Well Radio that comes on every Wednesday to get the word out about the program and to talk about how students can get involved.
This week, Sunday, Feb. 24 to Saturday, March 2, is National Eating Disorders Awareness week, so the hut is partnering up with Auburn University Body Image and Eating Disorders Awareness, AUBIE-EDA. Friday, March 1 will be "Fat Talk Free Friday" and they will be passing out cookies and compliments at the hut.
"It is a touchy subject so we have to be careful what we put out there," said team leader Emily Lewis, junior in nutrition and dietetics. "We have to know we are giving people the right information and resources as well."
The Be Well Hut program strives to encourage students and motivate their peers to keep a positive attitude and live healthy lifestyle. For the rest of the semester students can find the hut on the concourse every week trying to achieve this goal.
"It has been awesome to watch this program take shape from the ground up," Sturdivant said.
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