With the 2010 Winter Olympics in full swing, the motivation to get moving and get in shape just like the Team USA athletes is contagiously inspiring.

While it may be too late to capitalize on the Olympic dreams you had when you were eight-years-old, it’s never too late to workout like a professional athlete, even if you’re a busy student.

Here are the top five schools where staying fit is as much a part of the collegiate experience as cramming for finals and paying too much for college textbooks. Just keep in mind that there is no special ranking to this list.

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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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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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December is not just about the holidays and eating too much. It is also a month of reflection, counting our blessings and setting the groundwork for healthy and perhaps, life-saving, New Years resolutions. It is then near perfect that December is also AIDS Awareness Month, a month when we remember, honor and continue to fight one of the gravest health epidemics of the modern world. 

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Obesity is a huge issue for Americans, no pun intended. Over 34 percent of Americans are considered obese and almost 33 percent are considered overweight. Carrying around extra pounds also predisposes you to a host of health risks such as heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.

As students, most of us are all too familiar with the freshman fifteen but for some schools, the issue of weight is creating heightened concern and unprecedented action.

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You may think that diabetes is just a disease that affects your parents or grandparents, but keep this in mind: According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), two million adolescents (or one in six overweight adolescents) aged 12-19 have pre-diabetes, a precursor condition to one of the most prevalent medical conditions affecting our country.

November is not just a season where we celebrate Thanksgiving, but also it is a month in which we educate ourselves and each other about diabetes through American Diabetes Month. 

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Tuesday, November 10 the newest season of Sesame Street will premiere, with an anxious audience of pre-school aged children ready to sing, dance and learn.

What makes this premiere so special is that it marks the 40th anniversary of this iconic children’s show.

To really give this milestone the attention it deserves, first lady Michelle Obama will make a guest appearance, sharing her love of vegetables with the neighborhood.

It’s a fitting segment, as she introduced the first White House vegetable garden since Eleanor Roosevelt. In the segment, she’s going to show four children how planting seeds in the ground will yield fresh, healthy produce like tomatoes, lettuce and carrots. Just last week it was announced that Michelle Obama is adding childhood obesity to her issues of interest, and there’s no better way to help curb that than by introducing the value of fresh vegetables to young eaters.

The first lady will be competing for air space alongside the featured letter “H” and counting to 40 by 10s. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a scary time for college graduates. Although the economy has improved recently, we are still in a recession and jobs are hard to come by.

In looking at industries, retail lost 45,000 jobs, finance lost 42,000 jobs, and manufacturing lost 207,000 jobs, signalling the largest one-month decline in over 25 years.  Many college seniors are therefore considering graduate school, simply because there are not enough jobs.

Is there any hope?

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Consider being a full-time college student as a prep course for parenthood. The sleep deprivation you experience as a student is the same fogginess, constant fatigue and in-need-of-caffeine feelings you will experience as new parents (for those of you who choose to become parents).

But since parenthood may be a distant dream for you, and your grades are currently your main priority, consider this: Sleep loss severely impacts your ability to focus, retain knowledge and produce accurate, error-free work. Need further proof? Studies undertaken on sleep-deprived medical interns have shown that they commit a significant amount of serious medical errors, largely the result of attentional failures from sleepiness.

So grab your pillow and learn the five things you can do to improve your sleep and grades. Read the rest of this entry »

Books, beer and sex. Those are three near givens on any college campus. But what most college students don’t realize is that when it comes to beer and sex, there is a lot more at risk than just a hangover and a broken heart. College students are one of the most at-risk groups for sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs).

But before panic sets in, here is what you need to know about protecting yourself, increasing your sex-ed knowledge, and lowering your risk for becoming just another statistic.

Risk Factors

There are two primary risk factors for STDs among students:

First, college students enjoy a remarkably easy access to alcohol, which significantly impairs judgment and in many cases, leads to sex.

Second, the lack of  practicing risk-reduction behaviors like safe-sex or getting tested regularly also amps up risk. This second risk factor can be intimately related to alcohol as the effects of booze contributes to whether or not someone is coherent enough to put on a condom or inquire about their partner’s sexual health. Read the rest of this entry »