Upgrading health and wellness

GVL / Luke Holmes - Natalie Longroy gets ready for her workout with her Fitbit.

Luke Holmes

GVL / Luke Holmes – Natalie Longroy gets ready for her workout with her Fitbit.

Drew Schertzer

The calendars are speeding toward March already, and many people who started the year off with new year’s resolutions have stopped. This is one reason the “Health Wellness Tech Expo” is being held Tuesday, Feb. 28. The Grand Valley State University Laker Store will host the event from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on its second floor. Here, people will be able to check out technology and foods that can improve their fitness regimes.

“We are giving people the opportunity to set health goals,” said Liza Guikema, marketing manager at the Laker Store. “February is a good reminder to be healthy, and they can use new technology to do that.”

There will be eight different tables set up at the event. Each one will contain different health-related resources people can look into, such as campus recreation, human resources, technology, apps and more.

The apps that were selected were chosen based on four categories. There are different apps representing health, nutrition, fitness and meditation. There will be a display board showing all of the different kinds of apps that are available to download. Students working the table will be equipped with an iPad to show how the apps work as well. The goal of this is to provide a simple thing people can do that could help them tremendously, said Katherine Lomas, the manager of the Laker Tech Department.

“We like to invite people into the Laker Store that don’t know these things exist,” Lomas said. “Here, we can showcase things like the campus rec and HR.”

There will also be accessories that attendees can win, such as fitness bands, Bluetooth speakers and other prizes, along with discounted apparel.

Lomas hopes the expo can help people physically in their workout routines, but she also emphasized dieting and mental health. There are a lot of food options around campus, Lomas explained, but people don’t always know what the healthier options are.

Guikema held similar beliefs and said campus dining has a surprising amount of healthy food, which people don’t always eat. There will be food samples from different campus dining options available at the expo to display some of the possible choices. Lomas said she just wants to offer help to people, from information on workout plans to dieting options.

The “Health Wellness Tech Expo” was held for the first time last year. It was successful, with about 100 people showed up throughout the day to experience the expo last year. Guikema hopes to have similar numbers again this year. The organizers are placing an emphasis on faculty and staff members attending, Lomas said. However, Guikema talked about the benefits for students as well.

“There are many reasons students can go,” Guikema said. “There’s information on dieting to workout classes, or they can go to just eat free food.”