Every year, during November the HOSA Future Health Professionals Organization has its chapters around the globe participate in an educational event that they call HOSA Week. This year Nov. 6-10 was HOSA Week at Hellgate.
Hellgate HOSA joined the rest of their organization in working towards teaching students about their health, both physical and mental. Every year the members of HOSA work together to develop presentations about student health and then they present them in the lobby throughout the week. “We want to raise awareness about HOSA and how to be a better student,” said Juliet Geilen, the state HOSA vice president.
In the past years HOSA members have covered many topics such as “How much screen time should teenagers have?” or “Vaping and why it is harmful”. This year’s five topics were “Teens! Are you getting enough sleep?”, “Medical ID set up; How much does your backpack weigh?”, “Are you stressed? How do you cope?”, “What to know about your nutrition and hydration.”, and “Post Activity recovery nutrition ideas.”
Each topic was presented on a different day with a different group of HOSA members. Monday was about sleep, Tuesday was about medical ID, Wednesday was about stress, Thursday was about nutrition, and Friday was about post activity recovery.
The interesting and helpful part of HOSA Week is that it is an event led by students for students. Teenagers get to learn about things that apply to them. “We had a lot of fun during HOSA week, and we got to learn/teach about things that actually apply to teenagers,” said Finleigh Schrichte, a HOSA board member.
Each day was picked based on things that the HOSA members as students felt was worth teaching about. “We picked post activity recovery because we have a lot of student athletes at Hellgate and this surprisingly isn’t common knowledge. We want to make sure our athletes are fueling their bodies correctly or really just anybody who is moving their body because we want to make sure people feel their best,” said Faith You, the state HOSA president.
Every day went well and was very successful in informing Hellgate students about their health. Both the HOSA members and the student body were able to learn a lot about their bodies and minds, and the best ways to take care of both.
