Dean of Arts and Letters, Christopher Long, left, stands by the Inaugural Healthy Homecoming Walk sign. This walk was a health initiative hosted by Exercise is Medicine on Campus. Photo courtesy of Kerri Vasold
Promoting the importance of walking and exercise, Exercise is Medicine on Campus, a health initiative coordinated by the American College of Sports Medicine, hosted the first MSU Inaugural Healthy Homecoming walk on Oct. 14.
The group stationed themselves on the sidewalk near the Spartan Statue from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and encouraged those passing by to walk even just one lap on the path they had mapped out. One lap totaled to a quarter of a mile.
Kerri Vasold, physiology graduate student and event coordinator for the walk, said many people were pleasantly surprised with how easily this event made them walk a mile or two in little time.
“I like walking events a lot because it incorporates it into your daily life," Vasold said. "It takes five minutes to walk around this path that we have today and if people did this, if they did six laps, five days a week, they would be more active than 50 percent of Americans right now."
The group was contacted by Penn State University and was asked to host this event and turn it into a competition. Whichever university logged the most laps from participants would win.
Kinesiology senior Elena Porretta and two of her friends decided to stop by to get exercise on a beautiful day.
“It’s not a marathon, it’s a really simple thing,” Porretta said.
Along with the event being free, the group was also giving away prizes and coupons to thank participants for taking part. This included a grand prize of two tickets to the Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix with pit row passes donated to them by IndyCar driver Charlie Kimball.
“It’s really important to get out and walk," Vasold said. "Walk from your car to campus or from your car to class instead of driving yourself over there. I think it’s really easy to incorporate it into daily activity rather than just driving yourself everywhere.”
Vasold has taken part in the initiative since she was an undergraduate student at Saginaw Valley State University and feels fortunate to be able to continue her work with it at MSU.
“You don’t have to exercise and go to the gym, there are so many other avenues and I think exercise medicine does a really good job of promoting that so I was really excited to join the initiative here,” Vasold said.
The organization hopes to host a similar event in the spring and continues to host fitness classes in all of the neighborhoods on campus.
“Exercise really is medicine,” David Ferguson, exercise physiology assistant professor, said.
Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
