The university should empower students to live a healthy lifestyle. Increased resources for students across campus would lead more students to exercise.

Exercise promotes a healthy self-image. Positive self-image can improve mental health. Confident students are more likely to be outgoing and active among the community. Exercise also helps to improve mental health by lowering stress levels and increasing your body’s dopamine production.

Many WSU students have trouble getting the proper motivation to exercise. For some students, lack of exercise is due to lack of comfort in the gym. This could be a result of not understanding how to perform productive workouts.

The Chinook and the SRC could put out advertisements around campus that explain the benefits of exercise. UREC should also offer cheaper group classes that are accessible for all students. This encourages more students to get the proper amount of daily activity.

Displaying information about exercise could really benefit the student body, said Julian Naranjo, senior basic medical science major. 

The motivation for exercise becomes a lot more challenging for students who never learned how to properly exercise. For students who never learned how to exercise, learning can be a barrier to begin exercising in itself.

“A lot of it [exercise] is eternally motivated,” Naranjo said. “This is better for you if you do it now, than not do it at all.”

Learning how to properly exercise can be an intimidating process. For example, if an individual wants to learn how to train with weights, they first have to learn which exercises work each muscle group. Next they need to learn proper form to not hurt themselves.

The Chinook provides classes for students to start working out. Unfortunately, these classes can cost as much as $70 which is too expensive for many students. Offering cheaper classes would enable more students to live a healthy lifestyle.

The UREC should post labeled workouts on its website that show which muscle groups are affected by each workout. Having labeled diagrams could motivate and teach patrons who may not know how to properly exercise.

Exercise can be intimidating but it is worth the positive health benefits. By advertising the benefits of a healthy lifestyle and affordable exercise classes as well as providing the student body with accurate information about healthy activities WSU would create a healthier campus.