It’s 2015, the technology era, the age of fast fixes and innovative inventions, and yet there’s a tricky issue that our instant gratification society can’t seem to handle; health. Without it, you don’t have anything, and it seems as if the present-day United States doesn’t seem to grasp this with the urgency it should. About one third of all Americans are overweight, and mental health issues are steadily becoming more prominent. Maybe citizens don’t see their personal weight problems and hindering stress as a problem to anyone but themselves, but companies sure do. The Northeast Business Group on Health reported that U.S. companies lose roughly $73 billion a year in productivity due to obesity alone. Because of reports like these, many businesses have instilled wellness programs to better the health of their workers and make for a more efficient company. How might something like this translate into a school setting? Could students have the opportunity to get a better education if they participated in ongoing programs engineered to better their health? A school wellness program may not be as difficult to create as it seems, yet at the same it could be more necessary than most people think.

The wellness program idea has become something of a trend, popping up in many large companies. Ron Koskiewicz, the Fleet Manager at Commonwealth Edison, has recently been exposed to a program of the sort.

“We’re concerned about health at ComEd, and we believe that if people take responsibility for their own health, it will create a wellness program that…kind of pays for itself,” he said.

The goals for the program?

“…[I]f people are more conscious…they will become healthier people and ultimately reduce the cost of healthcare,” he said.

ComEd’s program includes a company-issued pedometer that encourages employees to reach weekly goals for the number of steps that they take, as well as health classes they can sign up for that include coaching from health professionals.

“…[W]e can work through a coach that provides incentive for us to exercise more and or eat more healthy,” Koskiewicz said.

Koskiewicz believes the program is doing its job and making the people at ComEd  healthier, though he mentioned that he does not have the statistics to back this up.

“It’s kind of like weighing yourself every morning…what I like about the pedometer plan…is I feel like I have always been somewhat active, and this kind of confirms my ‘active-ness’…if I can call it that,” he said. “You know what, the best health care is a person who cares about their own health and has a drive to improve their own health.”

This program appears to be doing just this for him. When asked if the pedometer is making him more active, he said, “It is! You know, I’m actually very conscious of the steps I take every day.”

Would a similar program be beneficial for the students at Geneva High School?

“There are a lot of factors to consider,” says Health teacher Lisa Meister. “I do think that obesity is a problem for some kids…there are some kids who need a combination of better nutrition and more activity to help them manage their weight,” she said.

But it appears that at Geneva, the most common issues lie inside the mind, not the body.

“I think that one of the biggest things we have noticed over the past few years is a heightened sense of anxiety,” Meister reveals. “Kids don’t know how to cope with being uncomfortable and how to use their skills to get through a situation and grow from it…They learn to run away from discomfort.”

Mrs. Therese White, a social worker at the school, notices the same issues in this generation’s teens.

“Kids do not have coping skills. They are not resilient,” she said. She explained that having anxiety causes a need for “self-preservation”. “So whatever that takes; the fight or flight might kick in too,” she said.

Meister says students need to learn from this.

“Our fight or flight response is purposeful…it helps us through the stressful situation to come out on the other side of it. Then we can learn from our experience how to handle it better next time…We grow from discomfort,” she said.

This issue is about more than just personality flaws; it is affecting how students are receiving their education and growing socially.

“So many kids let their anxiety cripple them and keep them from talking in front of the class, working with other kids in a group, or even coming to school at all,” Meister said.

The problem with this that White sees is that the issue tends to snowball.

“If you’re missing school, if you’re missing classes then you’re gonna miss instruction, you’re gonna miss learning, and it’s gonna affect your grades; it’s a downward spiral effect. And it can affect your social experience too. I mean, it affects everything,” she said.

It does indeed affect everything. White explains the issues in today’s society that cripple teens’ ability to reach their full potential by heightening their anxiety. The high educational “stakes” is one of them.

“The competitiveness…There’s a lot of pressure to do really well,” she said.

Anxious parents is another issue, and their nerves can actually rub off on their child, putting even more on his or her plate.

“You can’t just be happy, you have to be really happy, and if you’re not happy they want to know why you’re not happy, and then they gotta make sure that everything’s going well for you…a lot of parents don’t just let you feel,” says White on these nervous “helicopter” parents.

And finally, social media appears to be an issue when it comes to anxiety.

“Instead of being face to face, and really feeling things and communicating, they communicate through, you know, an iPhone, and texting, where you’re not talking to somebody,” says White. “So when things come up and you really need to have a good friend to talk to or be face to face with, sending a sad emoji face just doesn’t cut it. And then you want that instant gratification. Say you’re down and you wanna talk with somebody, but they don’t respond to your text right away, it may have nothing to do with you but you might take it personally, and then that makes you feel worse…it’s just all those nuances of communication that you really don’t get through a phone.”

White’s fear for students is that they have not learned how to work through problems like these in high school, leaving them unequipped for real life.

“…[W]hen you go off to college, you get a B, you freak out. But you don’t even have the emotional coping skills to handle it,” she says.

Meister appears to be thinking along the same lines.

“We need to teach them how to face discomfort and work through it,” Meister said.

Is a health care program the answer to this? White certainly thinks a number of things could be done to control students’ anxiety at school, during the school day, before class, or even after school.

Her ideas include learning how to do meditate and do yoga, participating in stress-relieving activities, and learning mindfulness, “so that they have strategies that they can use throughout their school day to help relieve their stress,” she said.

White expanded on the idea, stressing that these changes would not be a lot of work to incorporate into everyday life.

“Simple. It doesn’t have to be difficult,” she said. “Even it it was student led. Even if it was teachers before class, you can do one-minute mindfulness where you shut your eyes and you just focus on something peaceful, maybe it’s just white light, but it’s silence, you just close your eyes, you go to that calm, happy place for a minute, and then it helps decrease your heart rate, your heart rate goes down. Your stress level comes down inevitably.”

The possibilities of a health program for Geneva High School are varied, and it could go in a lot of different directions.

“It could be a fun idea to play with to see what factors we are looking at to define health, where would the incentives come from, in what form, and so on. But it would be an interesting concept,” said Meister.

If it ever does manifest itself in some type of way, the general consensus is that its main purpose should be to better students’ experience at school.

White says, “You know, it would be really awesome if every student felt connected, and had at least one friend, and was involved in at least one school-related activity. Because if you feel connected to our school, you’re gonna wanna be here, you’re gonna wanna be engaged.”