NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State
University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
February 12, 1998
Each class section is filled to capacity and contains a disparate audience made up of North Dakota State University students: future accountants, news reporters, teachers, nurses, engineers, scientists and artists. A requirement for graduation? For some. But for all enrolled in this introductory class titled, "Personal and Community Health," there exists an opportunity—an opportunity to act now and enjoy lifelong rewards.
"The underlying theme in all my classes is self-responsibility," says Judy Ary, a lecturer in the NDSU health, physical education and recreation department. "It's up to the individuals to make the behavior changes they need to benefit from the information."
Ary also teaches a lifetime fitness course, and she recently became a certified instructor in a risk-reduction program called On Campus Talking About Alcohol (OCTAA). Along with five NDSU colleagues, Ary will be providing OCTAA training this spring to NDSU students through eight one-hour sessions. Meanwhile, Ary is already including components of OCTAA in her other NDSU courses.
"I want to cover as many aspects of quality of living as I can," says an enthusiastic Ary. "My goal is to provide students with enough information to create an incentive for cultural and/or behavioral change."
What needs changing? The youthful notions of immortality and invincibility for starters, says Ary. But long term, she is focusing on something called the compression of morbidity. In short, people today are living longer—and many are living longer with chronic disease.
"A lot of the factors affecting our quality of life as older adults may hinge on the choices we make as young people," Ary explains. "In middle age and beyond, it often takes a marker event like a heart attack to make us wake up. It would really be so much more simple to adopt a healthy lifestyle early in life."
Ary's goal as an educator is to help her students deal effectively with issues involving alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, mental well-being, nutrition, physical activity, diseases (both communicable and non-communicable), family, and relationships. Ary expects her students to identify risk factors and conduct self-assessments.
Using alcohol as an example, Ary says research supports the fact that some individuals face biological risks. Their self-assessments may include the following questions: "Is there alcoholism in my family?" "What was my first experience with alcohol like? Did I have a high tolerance?" "Has my tolerance increased over time?" These questions, then, serve as discussion points for the choices students can make.
"It's still up to the individuals to make the behavior changes," concludes Ary. "A commitment to that quality of living and healthy lifestyles is part of it too."
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Source: Judy Ary (701) 231-9613
Editor: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136