Ninth International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society

Abstract

Wellness is a transdisciplinary concern, one that is inextricably linked to students’ academic success. Health not only affects a student’s ability to focus and concentrate, it influences her attitude, motivation, persistence, and self-identity (Anderson, 2015, 2016; LaFountaine, Neisen, and Larsen, 2007; Killams and Degges-White, 2017). Therefore, wellness should be central to a student-centered approach to education. To teach the whole student, we must see the student as a human being with a body, heart, and spirit. By helping students make the connection between their well-being and academic success, we can increase their personal responsibility for both. Using concepts from systems science, we propose a non-dogmatic approach to integrating attention to self-care across the disciplines. Context, goals, feedback loops, and leverage points are some of the concepts we will elaborate on, building on previous research and practices in systems thinking inspired health promotion (Newton, Dooris, & Wills, 2016; Naaldenberg, et al, 2009, Peters, 2014; Swanson, et al, 2012). Teachers are not required to learn a lot of principles in systems thinking to begin implementing some effective interventions and practices. Investing in providing students with appropriate information and skills-training to see their role in developing healthy lifestyle habits can result in more engaged and alert learners. It is our belief that teachers will find a systems approach to addressing wellness so rewarding that they will want to increase their systems know-how and experiment with using it in their primary discipline. We conclude with a discussion and promotion of “healthy universities.”