Y Be Fit makes some healthy changes
Y Be Fit is a lifestyle and wellness program open to students, faculty and community members that offers the opportunity to work one-on-one with coaches to create health goals
Y Be Fit has been making changes to better provide students with everything they need to get in shape and improve their health.
Andrea Erickson, a co-director of Y Be Fit with a master’s degree in health promotion, said Y Be Fit is a lifestyle and wellness program open to students, faculty and community members that offers the opportunity to work one-on-one with coaches to create health goals.
“Each health coach works hard to tailor their messages to the direct needs of the individual,” Erickson said. “We offer health coaching on a variety of topics, including weight management, diet and nutrition, exercise, stress management, heart health, cholesterol, blood pressure and more.”
According to Katy Neves, an exercise physiology major and one of the interns at Y Be Fit, participants receive an initial assessment and then twelve follow-up appointments with coaches to set goals. Among the things assessed are body composition, strength and flexibility.
Pete Arens, co-director of Y Be Fit and a graduate student with a master’s degree in health promotion, said Y Be Fit went digital with the help of the Life Sciences Web Team. This helped direct more time to clients.
“We created an online portal where clients can access their assessment results and receive feedback on how to improve their health,” Arens said. “The Life Sciences Web Team worked so hard to meet our needs and continue to offer support whenever we need it. The portal has eliminated a lot of paperwork and allowed us to focus more on helping our clients reach their health goals.”
However, Arens said the biggest change was in advertising.
“We put up fliers in campus housing, placed brochures and began setting up booths at fairs and special campus events,” he said. “We also created a website to make it easy for the BYU community to learn more about our program. We saw a 50 percent increase in program participation in 2012 from 2011. … The goal of the changes has been to increase participation, improve the quality of the program and create a better internship experience for our health coaches.”
Arens said he, along with the staff and faculty director, worked hard to make Y Be Fit what it is today and that many of their goals have come to fruition. “It has been the most rewarding part of my BYU experience,” he said.
“It has also been exciting to partner with other resources on campus, like BYU Wellness, to help move our projects forward.”
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Originally published in The Digital Universe
