This Varsity period, De Montfort Students’ Union (DSU) and Leicester Students’ Union have teamed up to run a joint ‘Healthy Body, Healthy Mind’ campaign to raise awareness of the ongoing positive campaigns that students take part in to form a positive culture around sport.
Healthy Body, Healthy Mind will focus on three areas throughout the Varsity series, including: Nutrition, Men’s Mental Health and Sex Positivity.
Although Varsity engages with a lot of sporting students, this campaign is certainly not limited to those who participate in sport during the Varsity period. We want to encourage everyone at De Montfort University (DMU) and University of Leicester (UoL) to get involved, participate in Varsity and spread the message that ‘a healthy body or mind is not a one size fits all.
You can follow the campaign on social media via the #HBHM hashtag.
‘Healthy Body, Healthy Mind’ will emphasise the importance of looking after yourself, whether that is through rejecting diet culture and having a slice of pizza in your Varsity prep, to improving your language and behaviour around sex or mental health. Employing active self-awareness and self-care is the most important culture we want to surround sporting students with.
The video below features sportsmen from both DMU and Team Leicester and aims to encourage an open conversation about mental health. The video will be played at every Varsity men's game throughout the series to raise awareness.
Aisha Ismail, your Student Opportunities and Engagement Executive explained: ‘There is no such thing as one singular ‘healthy body’ or ‘healthy mind’ as everyone is different. We want to encourage people to get involved and to get rid of the myths around what classes as a healthy body or mind’
‘We want to make sure that we are all healthy and happy which is why this year’s focus has been on nutrition, mental health and sex positivity as these are very important aspects of student life and their experience.’
Mia Nembhard, Sports Officer for Leicester Students’ Union said ‘The terms ‘healthy body’ and ‘healthy mind’ can appear as problematic; we have been socialised to associate healthy with a singular ideal. But having a healthy body is irrespective of its shape, size, physical ability or disability, and a healthy mind is irrespective of mental or cognitive disabilities.
We are reclaiming the term healthy and promoting it in a much more inclusive way. Health doesn’t have a look or routine: it’s a concept that has an individual meaning to all.
I hope that during the Varsity season students employ some version of self-care reflective of this, whether that’s rejecting diet culture or muting unhelpful posts on Instagram - do what you need to maintain your own health.’
For more information about Healthy Body, Healthy Mind, please see this page.
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