Tracking physical wellness is easier for BYU students with the launch of MyHealth, the newest portion of BYU’s student wellness website.
MyHealth allows users to track their physical wellness over periods of time.
Nutrition, exercise, weight and medical are the four categories the website features for students and faculty to monitor and predict their health. The homepage depicts graphs of each of the categories that allow students to easily see the development of their health.
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Nathan Woodbury, web development specialist for the MyHealth project has been developing the website for more than a year and a half. Woodbury said the project was evolutionary and took quite a few revisions to make it as user friendly as it is today.
Tracking a user’s health is quick and efficient with MyHealth. Users are able to compile large amounts of information for themselves just by imputing simple information such as food eaten and exercise performed.
“As we provide that opportunity for them to track their health they’re able to be empowered to make changes in their lifestyle to protect their health,” Cobb said.
MyHealth can be used every day or just as a resource to record health information. Users can make weight loss goals with the program and track their progress.
“Even if you don’t use it all the time I think it’s just really great for people to use,” said Bre Booren, a wellness coordinator. “It’s really made well. We worked a lot with professors getting the most up-to-date information.”
Booren said her favorite part of MyHealth — the nutrition portion – it has a wonderful database and users can input almost any type of food. Users can even create their own foods and input their own recipes.
Larry Hall, director of student wellness, said once individuals reach an adult age they have certain personal limits for themselves. For individuals with unusual resting heart rates or blood pressure, for example, MyHealth is a helpful tool to record information and measure consistency.
“Awareness is a very important aspect of health,” Hall said. “Healthwise the things we always have to be concerned about are big changes that occur.”
MyHealth makes users account for their eating and exercise routine during the day and that awareness can encourage better eating habits, more frequent exercise and an expanded knowledge of a user’s personal health.
Faculty and staff began using MyHealth in July, when it launched, and students are now given the opportunity to use the resources as well.
“At last check we had nearly 1,100 users on the faculty side,” Woodbury said.
Students can begin their MyHealth account through the physical wellness link at studentwellness.byu.edu.
