Date of Award
5-2017
Culminating Project Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Sports Management: M.S.
Department
Kinesiology
College
School of Health and Human Services
First Advisor
David Bacharach
Second Advisor
Caryl Martin
Third Advisor
Steven Hoover
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Keywords and Subject Headings
Wellness
Abstract
Wellness can mean many things to many people. Wellness does not just mean that a person is free from illness; wellness is a dynamic and continued process for oneself. Wellness has been defined by the National Wellness Institute as an active process through which people become aware of, and make choices towards, a more successful existence (9). Wellness models have been created to try and further explain the dimensions of wellness and their interactions with each other and the impact on quality of life. Wellness models have used dimensions of wellness such as physical, emotional, intellectual or mental, spiritual, environmental or occupational, psychological and social. The dimensions can further be described as a constant continuum for the human body to work towards optimal well-being in each area.
Participation in wellness programs has been known to improve the quality of life and overall health of the participant. However, wellness outreach programming in rural areas often lacks the resources and professionals to provide available and quality programming for the people in such small communities. In January 2000, the United States Department of Health and Human Services launched Healthy People 2010, a 10 year goal to improve the health of Americans through health promotion and disease prevention (25). This initiative has brought increased awareness to the overall health of people in this nation. With increased awareness, rural areas are discovering ways to make wellness programs available and affordable to people in these areas.
The purpose of this paper is to show how a wellness center and its programming can be initiated in a rural area, reveal the current perceived wellness of its members, and discuss the potential impact on the community to increase overall health and well-being of people in a rural setting.
Demonstrating the process of an intervention type program, such as the wellness center and wellness programming in a small community, is significant to understanding the potential of providing wellness programming to other rural areas and the impact it may have on the wellness and overall health of people in the community.
Recommended Citation
Salonen, Tamara A., "Promoting Wellness to a Rural Area through Recreation Facility and Programming" (2017). Culminating Projects in Kinesiology. 10.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/pess_etds/10
