Saturday, February 22, 2020
Scouting the Territory (Blog #2)
As I have completed some further research on the topic I was interested in (the success in college based off of a students diet, sleep, and exercise), I realized it is a specific topic with very little material targeted towards such detailed areas. That being said, I have decided to reconsider my topic and make it more so about a students health/habits as a whole and how it effects their success. As i researched the topic, key terms such as success and health were the most useful in finding substantive articles related to my topic. A lot of health related articles and discussions in relation to college had to do with mental health rather than one's physical health which shows the struggles that students face today. On Wikipedia they talk about the stressors in a college environment, the effects it has on ones academics, and personal stressors such as students self-esteem issues when trying to fit in with others especially in fraternities and sororities. Some books that seemed to be of importance for my topic are: Self Care For College Students and College Student Mental Health: New Directions for Student Services. Some ideas I came up with by searching these topics are the important topics about how a students stress level changes throughout college which starts effecting mental and physical health dramatically. These physical health problems include sinus infection, strep throat, as well as developing disorders such as eating disorders. With further research I discovered a website that contains bar graphs in reference to different aspects of students health while in college ( https://www.statista.com/topics/4553/college-student-health-in-the-us/ ). This website is an important part to my research because it will provide my analysis with close detailed specifics as well as actual numbers in order to support my arguments made. Another website ( https://www.higheredtoday.org/2019/08/12/college-student-mental-health-well-survey-college-presidents/ ) also seemed to be of importance because it provided stats as well as types of things that are needed and things that can be improved upon in order to combat mental health issues amongst college students. The information In this website will allow me to bring new talking points into my research which will allow me to provide more complex thoughts and questions. Regarding the topic of physical/mental health in college, it is agreed that it is a huge problem that needs to be take care of, however that's not the controversial topic. The controversial topic is why physical/mental health has become such an elevated issue that so many students now seem to be dealing with as opposed to those previous decades of college students.
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As Melinda Cooper argues in her chapter on "In loco parentis," colleges increasingly feel obliged to address campus dangers like rape and hazing (and she could have added suicide, excessive drinking, and mental health problems generally) because of the potential threat of litigation from parents. So pressure from parents especially has pushed schools to assume more "in loco parentis" responsibility for students, even if they are officially adults. Schools also provide fitness centers and dietary counseling at the health centers for students. As the blog post you found on College Student Mental Health suggests, though, schools are overwhelmed with the problem of mental health and cannot meet the demand. Perhaps if they did more to address sleep (especially) and general health among students, they would indirectly be doing more to address mental health.
ReplyDeleteA quick search suggests that there has been significant research linking mental health with sleep -- see for instance "Lack of sleep linked to mental health problems for college students." The term "sleep hygiene" is increasingly used, and lack of sleep -- so common among college students -- is linked to mental health problems, including depression. I think you could just write on sleep if you wanted. And I would look around to see what colleges are doing to encourage sleep wellness.