The Relationship between Mental Health, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Engagement with Nature

Somewhat over two years ago I began a conversation with the administration of my undergraduate school, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, on use of a portion of their new land acquisition for a campus sustainable, organic farm.

My premise was an interest in broadening the psychosocial aspects of the student experience – specifically around the theme of sustainability.

It was very directly driven by my own life and the lives of my family and close business colleagues.

There were a number of underlying hypotheses:

1. Current uses of personal computers and handheld devices have profoundly changed how we interact as a species – acutely so with young people.
2. How we eat, what we eat, and how we interact when we eat is critical to human health.
3. The degree to which we are conscious of our bodies – and physical activity that aids body awareness – greatly enhances human health.
4. Interaction with biodiverse ecologies in different weather conditions aids human health – particularly regular early morning biodiverse interactions.
5. The term ‘mental health’ is, for me, too narrow. It rests upon old notions of material differences between mind and body – differences that I find artificial and biologically illogical (physiologically we are complex material beings – not ‘pieces of anatomy’).
6. The Rose-Hulman campus, although pleasant, limits student interaction with the natural world. This is true of most college campuses.

From my visits to campus there appears to be a great need for mental health services – and I assume a similar need to identify students in need of mental health care.

I fundamentally question whether individual counseling can be effective with young students who have, in many cases, profoundly altered their human and natural interactions through the use of electronic devices –and the resulting changes that occur with family, friends, and interactions with nature.

Unless counseling takes a broad biological and sociological health perspective, I think it has limited value.

I also think solutions to the health problems of current students need to be long term and incremental. Most of the health problems that bring students to mental health clinics have been evolving for much of their lives – and do not lend themselves to easy solutions.

Many of my motivators for proposing a campus farm were based upon an interest to greatly diversify biological experiences for students utilizing both plants and animals. I also believed it would expand student and faculty perspectives on Rose-Hulman’s specialized academic programs.

How we integrate learning and knowledge with compassion, affection, and caring behaviors will be critical to addressing the increasingly acute health problems of young people.