Overview of Course

This course will enable students to develop a foundational understanding of the dimensions of health and wellness including physical, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual, as well as the lifestyle behaviors that enhance these dimensions. Topics will emphasize the importance of a physically active lifestyle, nutrition, stress management, and other health promoting behaviors as a way to empower students as individuals and as members of social structures, to voluntarily make personal decisions, modify lifestyle practices, and seek to change social and environmental conditions to enhance the health and well-being of individuals and communities. Through understanding of evidence-based health practices, individuals can learn to take appropriate responsibility for their own health and wellness and, to some extent, for the health of others. The holistic (multi-dimensional) approach to health and wellness is integrated within course content and represents a synthesis of facts, principles, and concepts drawn from biological, behavioral, sociological, environmental, and health sciences, and interpreted in terms of human needs and human potential across the lifespan. Unique to this Semester at Sea course is the opportunity to explore the influence of societal and cultural perspectives, norms, and values in those countries visited on our voyage that enhance or detract from health promoting lifestyles and public health in general.