The crisp air lent itself to the day’s planned physical activities as students gathered on the grass to participate in the Kinesiology Kick-Off Event.
Students met in the North Gym Thursday, Nov. 17 for two hours of educational interaction with the Health and Kinesiology Department.
“It’s good for people to know about the health and fitness of their body and what it can do for their lives,” kinesiology major Diego Harris said. “Obesity and problems are arising in our society and they all can be changed with fitness and the way you eat so it’s good to spread awareness.”
There was a table of healthy food options and bottled water available to students at the event. Students were able to get fitness evaluations and body fat assessments before going into their activities.
“It’s a fun experience. I got to test my body mass which was cool,” Harris said.
Assistant professor and full-time faculty of health education Jamie Phillips said it took about a month to plan for this event with the help of the Associated Students Organization (ASO), who funded the event.
“ASO sponsored us, but we did have a fundraiser at Pizza Rev so that next time we can fund ourselves,” Phillips said. “We wanted to do some fun activities to bring awareness to the campus of what activity classes we are offering.”
The event featured a variety of classes such as Zumba, bootcamp, and cheer accompanied by stretching.
“The aerobic conditioning class does showcase some Zumba. We have body conditioning classes, boot camp classes so we just wanted to showcase to students the kind of fun that they can have in our classes,” Phillips said.
Professors from the Kinesiology and Health Departments, like instructor Diane Rose Kelly, showed up to show their support and bring their students to participate in the event.
“It’s a great way to spark people’s interest in kinesiology, which is the study of motion and human body motion,” Kelly said. “It’s very important to get in touch with your body and to see all the many ways the body can move and all the different positions to stay in shape.”
According to Phillips, Pierce is currently working with California State Universities to get the approval for the Associate’s Degree of Transfer certificate so that kinesiology majors at Pierce can transfer to one of the CSUs and work toward a kinesiology degree.
“Kinesiology and health is super fun and you can do a lot with that major. So make sure you check out the courses that are available and enroll in our classes,” Phillips said.
A few ASO members also made an appearance to see the turn-out of the event.
“We put on these events to benefit the other students, so a lot of our work is to spread the message of the event,” said ASO Senator for the Economics department Ahmad Giha. “We make sure as many people as possible come because there’s not really any good in having an event if nobody comes.”
The physical activities were accompanied by available assessments provided to help students identify where they stood healthwise.
“A lot of people, believe it or not, are not aware of the risks associated from things like bad eating habits or not exercising,” Giha said. “When Pierce throws these kinds of events and provides motivation for people to come, like teachers giving out extra credit, they meet new people, we have healthy food here as well and just fun activities.”
