HAZLETON, Pa. — Penn State’s "Exercise is Medicine" initiative is coming to the Hazleton campus on Monday, Oct. 22, with a variety of activities to promote health and wellness.
The event will be set up from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the campus mall, or in the lobby of the Evelyn Graham Academic Building in case of inclement weather. Health screenings will include blood pressure, body composition, muscular strength, flexibility and mobility. The campus Wellness Committee will provide healthy snacks and water.
Chancellor Gary Lawler will lead students, faculty and staff on a walk around campus as part of the event. Participants should meet at 12:15 p.m. Monday at the Nittany Lion statue in front of Schiavo Hall.
The Kinesiology Club at University Park started the EiM program at Penn State with the first campus-wide EiM event at Penn State’s University Park campus held in November 2012. EiM on campus is an initiative of the American College of Sports Medicine that calls on universities and colleges to promote the health benefits of physical activity and exercise on their campuses.
The program at Penn State Hazleton is part of EiM’s new Mobile Outreach & Regional Expansion initiative, a project that will take its events and health assessments to campuses and community groups across the state.
The goal with Mobile EiM, which has been made possible by a grant from the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, the Thomas M. Nardozzo Community Service Endowment and the Department of Kinesiology’s Faculty Endowment Fund, is to travel to various sites in and out of the community, and grant kinesiology students the opportunity to interact with others and give real advice.
Items the group is traveling with include a BIA, or Bodystat 1500 bioelectrical impedance analysis unit, which analyzes body composition; a first aid kit; laptop computers for recording and linking health history, and personal accounts; Monark bicycles to be used for the assessment of cardiorespiratory fitness; counters used in assessments to increase accuracy; and stop watches.