College drinking, sexually transmitted diseases, depression and eating habits were among the subjects tackled at the Health Fair put on by third-semester nursing students at Falcon Square.
The morning of Tuesday, Oct. 4, nursing program students were stationed in four different booths handing out pamphlets with information and hosting activities.
Third-semester nursing student Cynthia Amador took part in the STD booth and noted that approximately 200 students had visited the booth.
“We started with 200 pieces of candy and now they’re almost all gone,” Amador said of the early rush of students.
Nursing major Mo Lim added, “We’re out here promoting ‘a condom a day keeps the STD away’ and ‘no glove no love.”
Criminal Administrator major Eugene Isaac, who was pushed by his friend to stop by the booth, ended up getting something out of the experience. He learned something new about a sexually transmitted disease.
His friend, business major Justin Farlough thought it was a good idea to have the informative booths out for college students to partake in.
“This is college, kids my age are always experimenting, so it’s good to have something out here. This is a big warning sign so people know ‘watch what you’re doing.'”
With the water fountain as a backdrop, the booth that focused on depression and suicide prevention offered students pamphlets and handouts on suicide prevention and resources.
Nursing major Athena Sanchez said, “We’re teaching about the signs and symptoms of suicide and depression [we’re] also teaching coping mechanisms.
“[The]Send Silence Packing [event] brought awareness to suicide and we’re here to show people how to cope with it. That’s our job as nurses every day. We deal with these problems all the time.”
The students who were participating as part of their rotation wanted to remind students that the Health and Wellness Center and all of its resources is available to them.
Sanchez added, “We’re making students aware of the resources they have here on campus because a lot of students don’t realize that their fee actually pays for their medical [needs] at the Health Center as well as the availability of the full-time psychologist and letting them know that they can go or they can refer someone.”
After students visited the booth they were given a life saver candy because they now had the capacity to change or save the life of another with the information given.
Similarly, the booth focusing on alcohol and college used candy to deliver a message using it to replace beer in a mock beer pong set up.
Kinesiology major Guadalupe Trejo said that the beer pong set up caught her attention and she stayed for the candy.
Nursing major Christina Zapanta said, “Our topic is alcohol and college, so what better way to talk about it than to shoot some balls. The cups have numbers on them corresponding to the particular consequence that would happen if you do decide to drink alcohol while you’re in college.”
The topics listed ranged from sexual activity to health consequences and the cost of driving under the influence.
Zapanta continued, “Hangovers go away but herpes do not, you have lower inhibitions, and we have the picture of Brock Turner underneath.”
Turner was pictured in the project due to his conviction of counts of sexual assault at Stanford earlier this year.
“We talk about how [alcohol] is a gateway drug that introduces you to other drugs, physical abuse, and how [drinking] affects health, mainly the liver,” Zapanta expressed.
The fourth booth focused on nutrition and showed students the effects of sugar.
Nursing major Ayisha Panlillo said, “We [are showing] what a healthy diet consists of, really focusing on what sugar does to the body. It really does a lot to your organs and increases your chances of diabetes and heart disease, increases your blood pressure.”
The booth included a game that asked students to guess how much sugar is within drinks [and] snacks like yogurt and granola bars.
“[This] is so they can actually have a visual on how much sugar is in these products that we eat daily,” Panlillo noted.
