Spring Break can be so much fun! You don’t have to go to school, and hopefully there’s no homework looming over your head. You’re spending some good, quality time with your friends, hitting up local hot-spots or traveling to new places.

But for some reasons, your parents keep telling you to be careful. What can go wrong? It’s all good fun on Spring Break.

Well, at least it is if you take some moderate precautions. Do have fun on Spring Break, but heed your parents’ advice to be careful so you don’t became one of those college students who goes on Spring Break and never comes home.

Tips for Staying Safe on Spring Break:

1. Never leave a bar, party, club or social event alone. Everyone knows there is safety in numbers. Chances are that you are less likely to be observant of your surroundings if you have been drinking and you will be an easier target for a criminal. Besides, it’s always more fun to be with your friends on Spring Break than to be alone, right?

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Few public policy subjects stir the pot as fiercely as abstinence-only education. Proponents of abstinence education hold to the belief that it is not up to people outside of the family to discuss sensitive matters like sexuality. Some also believe that if schools are discussing and even handing out contraception, they are tacitly encouraging sexual activity.

On the other side of the coin, those who favor comprehensive sex education take what they would say is a realist viewpoint, in that once puberty hits, many kids are going to have sex whether the rest of us like it or not. Hormones dictate the outcome, not a taught moral code.

As is the case in many debates, both sides of the sex education debate have merits and faults. But first, let’s take a trip back to when schools started their sexual curriculum. Read the rest of this entry »

Guest blogger and co-founder of Girl, Get Strong! Women’s online fitness magazine, Melanie Berezan is a fitness fun-addict, adventure seeker, boundary-pusher, writer, traveler and mum of four amazing little people. Contributor to Galtime.com, Momcentral.com and DietsinReview.com. Melanie is currently training for the BMO Vancouver (half) Marathon, raising funds to support Girls on the Run.

Hitting the beach for spring break?

After a long winter of studying and dorm room snacking some of us are wishing we’d spent more time working out at the gym and less time working on textbooks. 

But if that’s you, don’t panic. There’s still time to make some quick, easy and (almost) painless changes that will get you on track for your spring break bikini – without cutting into studying time.

Sound good? Read on.

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Our friends over at Online University Review have compiled “The Ultimate Dorm Room Dieting Guide: 100 Tips, Tools & Tricks” to help you avoid college weight gain, including the avoiding the Freshman 15.

Since listing the entire guide might overwhelm our blog column, we have selected our favorite ten dorm room diet tips in no special order.

1. Too Much Sugar Makes You Crazy: Can’t eat a grapefruit without a packet of sugar? Try and do it anyway. That little extra flavor gives calories, crashing energy, and even tooth decay. Diet sweeteners aren’t much better either.
2. No Bedtime Snacks: Because your parents didn’t want you bouncing around during bed time, they wouldn’t let you eat two hours before bed. Because bedtime snacks can both add to stored calories and restless sleep, they should be avoided.

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So you’ve decided you want to go into the medical field, but you don’t necessarily want to be a doctor. It’s a lot of school, crazy hours, and the possibility of being sued for medical malpractice every day. Talk about stress.

Maybe you should go to nursing school. Registered nurses make close to $50,000 a year. Nurses also interact more regularly with patients, have set hours, and can specialize in any field they want.

If you are considering going to nursing school, you want to go to the best school possible, right? Here’s US News’ list of the top 10 nursing schools in the country.

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Public health. It’s a term that gets tossed around a lot, but most people are exactly sure what a public health practitioner does. There are two types of public health care. The first is concerned with preventive health concerns, instead of curative aspects of health care. The second deal with health issues that concern the entire population level, such as a sudden outbreak of the flu or the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Public health has been practiced longer in Europe than in the U.S. According to Wikipedia, the first public health school was only established in 1916. These public health schools teach students to deal with health issues that plague large percentages of the general public. These issues include things like diabetes, smoking, and tuberculosis.

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College is just one big party, right? With Malibu Mondays, Tequila Tuesdays, Wisky Wednesdays, Tanqueray Thursdays, Fuzzy Navel Fridays, Schnapps Saturdays, and Smirnoff Sundays, it certainly seems that way. But now, one college is making a strong effort to address this misconception.

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With flu season in full force, students are some of the most at-risk individuals for getting sick because of their constant close contact with others.

Rather than reaching for the cold medicine when illness strikes, avoid getting sick altogether by protecting yourself and eating your way to health.

Food can provide significant benefits in building up the immune system, which can then help to fight off infection-causing viruses and bacteria.

So whether you live in the dormitory or in a college apartment, these three immune-boosting foods are easy to find in the college cafeteria or at the campus grocery store.

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It is very common knowledge that most people tend to over-indulge during holiday dinners. In my family, it’s almost a family tradition to make ourselves so full that we lay on the couches in a food coma after every meal.

There are so many yummy foods and it would be a waste to only eat one serving and not go back for seconds, or thirds, or fourths. I’m not saying this is a bad thing because I find myself doing it every year.

But this huge increase of extra calories has to be balanced out somehow.

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Imagine sitting down at a table and having to choose between a brown paper bag full of hamburgers and chicken sandwiches from a local fast food joint or a school cafeteria tray loaded up with lasagna and mashed potatoes.

Which one would you think is healthier and meets the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s standards for a healthy school lunch?

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