Tips explaining ways to cope, deal, or handle emotionally heavy situations are posted constantly on various social media. While mental health is critical, physical wellness may be just as important, but is not nearly as widely talked about.

“It plays a big part. Social, emotional wellness, physical wellness, and mental wellness are all interconnected. If one part is not working then the other parts suffer as well,” health instructor Jennifer Carda said.

Physical wellness can be described as many things, but the Australian National University defines it as “the ability to maintain a healthy quality of life that allows us to get the most out of our daily activities without undue fatigue or physical stress.” Examples of how physical well-being affects lives in various aspects includes sleeping well, eating well, being physically active, having good hygiene, and getting enough relaxation.  

“To be physically well, you have to look at it from an activity perspective. Because for physical wellness, it looks at not only, do you have an illness? Do you have a cold? Do you have some other issue you may be battling as far as diagnosable illnesses? As far as like a broken leg or something like that,” Carda said.

Maintaining physical health is a difficult task if a person does not know how the body works. The National Institutes of Health list 6 ways to improve and keep a healthy physical lifestyle, most of which are personal, and differ by the person, like finding a healthy weight, or calculating metabolism.

“I stay physically well by constantly learning about how my body reacts to things. Whether it be meal frequency, tracking macros, different exercises, or sleep patterns. All of those were previously researched by myself and have helped me achieve some goals in my life pertaining to all aspects, junior Evan Gann said.

Regularly seeing medical professionals for wellness checks and for illness are also important for physical wellness. Resourcs at East include the mobile health clinic and is on campus every Monday.

“I think we have improved our physical wellness at school with having access to the health clinic on site. If anyone has feelings of illness, maybe getting strep throat. They have access to those things here,” Carda said. “We’ve made great strides in improving that. We have a lot of physical activity offerings at school. From physical education classes to sports, and other clubs students can be involved in to help improve their physical wellness.”

According to Action For Healthy Kids, only 24% of kids get an hour of physical activity at least 5 days a week. Time and budget restraints make prioritizing physical wellness a challenge.

“I feel like schools just kind of give you the opportunity to do physical activity, but don’t enforce it as much. Although some of it is required to graduate,” junior Julian Lamas said.

Bellevue East provides several resources for physical wellness. Ranging from nurses, to an athletic trainer, to physical education teachers. While there is some overlap between the three, they do cover different areas under the physical wellness umbrella, and provide valuable services for the students.

“For resources, it would be your personal physician, the community health clinic, and any type of physical activity. It can be something you are interested in, like soccer, tennis, or quitage. Finding a resource there that can help you. All those things play into it. It’s not just physical activity, it’s the physical care of your body as well,” Carda said.

Most problems caused by being physically unwell can be simply solved by implementing healthy lifestyle choices. The Mental Health Foundation states that routine exercise, eating well, and regular appointments with a professional can drastically improve one’s health.

“The first thing anyone has to do is admit to themselves that there might be a problem. Find answers to as many of your questions as possible and ultimately find out what you need to fix in your life to become physically well once more,” Gann said.