Do students at LHS prioritize a healthy lifestyle?
Staff Vote – Yes: 1 No: 18
A healthy lifestyle is something students are always told they should lead. From health class to the news, it can be found anywhere but in every place there’s a different definition. So which ones are students supposed to believe?
The Bell staff discussed the topic of a healthy lifestyle, mostly focusing on three aspects of what they believe that consists of: exercising, eating right and managing a relatively positive state of mind.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, people between the ages of 14 and 17 should get between eight and 10 hours of sleep; while people ages 18 to 25 should get seven to nine hours of sleep. For most high-schoolers, this is a hard goal to reach due to homework, jobs, extracurriculars and a million other things that can keep students up late.
Exercise is an activity that many people know they should do but they end up lacking the time to do it or they do something they enjoy instead.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released an article that stated children and adolescents between the ages of six and 17 should participate in at least one hour or more of moderate to vigorous activity daily, including at least three days of aerobic, muscle-strengthening and bone-strengthening activities of choice.
The staff all agreed on what healthy eating was: balancing fats, proteins and carbs without excluding a group. While students may try to balance their eating habits, popular diets broadcasted in the media catch their eyes and end up depriving them of the necessary food.
A staff member also brought up caffeine and the physical and mental effects it has on students. While it may wake students up and give them a burst of energy, it isn’t usually found in the definition of “healthy eating.”
The mental health aspect is where the staff felt that a healthy lifestyle truly stemmed from. If you can’t keep the engine working then the car won’t go anywhere.
A staff member brought up the idea that in today’s society it’s normal to not care about mental health and with the stress placed on students it’s usually forgotten. Self-care days may not benefit the people in the long run, just at the moment.
In today’s society, people are focused on instant gratification and what they can do now. They focus on fixing small parts instead of working on the whole. For example, students spend the week maintaining grades but usually only set aside one day a week where they take care of their mental health.
For these reasons, the majority of The Bell staff has concluded that students do not prioritize a healthy lifestyle. While students know what it would take to live a healthy lifestyle, they typically don’t have time to achieve it. This concludes the point that in a society focused on the now, people should be focused on the future and really think about the choices they make and the life they want.
