HHS 231 Lifetime Fitness for Health

Develop personal awareness and strategies for your physical and mental health during the transition to college and throughout your life.

The Baccalaureate Core fitness requirement for students to graduate from Oregon State University consists of two components: A Lifetime Fitness for Health course (HHS 231) and a Physical Activity Course (PAC) of their choice. HHS 231 serves as a lecture course (2 credits), providing essential skills and strategies to promote lifelong health and well-being.

What is our focus?

Although we are designated a ‘fitness’ skill course, we do much, much more than that. HHS 231 promotes the health and well-being of our OSU students in four main areas:

Healthy behavior change
Physical activity promotion
Nutrition education
Mental health (this includes sleep and stress management)

HHS 231 is designed to facilitate the development of positive health behaviors in physical activity, nutrition and mental health through lectures, discussions, assignments and personal reflections. This course will teach you self-awareness and strategies to initiate these behaviors and creates the foundation for healthy habits you can continue to develop throughout your time at Oregon State and beyond.

HHS 231 provides up-to-date and relevant health and wellness information, as well as practical strategies to implement positive behavior change in physical activity, nutrition, mental health,and stress management throughout college and across the lifespan.

Oregon State has over 200 Physical Activity Courses (PAC)

You can take any PAC course for your third Fitness Skill Bacc core credit.

Visit PAC courses to see offerings and modalities.

Voted Best Bacc Core class 2020

- The Daily Barometer

Collaborations

To foster student success in adopting and sustaining health behaviors aligned with your personal interests and needs, HHS 231 intentionally intersects and collaborates with many programs and resources on campus that support positive health behaviors.

Collaborative example

Students asked for more dialogue on mental health, and we listened.

In 2018, we added a more robust section on mental health to our HHS 231 curriculum. Over the last four years, HHS 231 has partnered with Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) to better serve students through integrating curriculum and assignments on mental health.

We have helped over 7,000 students complete the “Recognizing students in distress” module who would not otherwise have completed it. The module’s focus is on helping yourself or a friend through a mental health issue while sharing resources for students.

Other collaborations are with:

Student Health Services
Physical Activity Courses (PAC) program
Healthy Campus Initiative
Academic Success Center
Dixon Recreation Center
Human Service Resource Center (HSRC)
University Housing and Dining
MU Retail Food Service

Special examination for waiver or credit

A Special Examination for Waiver or Credit (Special Exam) is offered for those students who wish to demonstrate their understanding of the material covered in the course in place of taking the entire course of lectures and labs.

Details about how to take the exam are available on the HHS 231 Special Examination page.

What students are saying about HHS 231

“I learned how to effectively help someone who is struggling mentally. Something I had to put to use shortly after learning it.”

“I learned that I can make a change in my own lifestyle if I put in the work for it. I changed multiple parts of my well-being into action, and I am proud of that.”

“One thing I learned about myself is that I am able to make changes to my lifestyle a lot easier than I thought I would be able to because of the tools I have learned from this class.”

“I learned about ways that I can best help my own body rather than trying to force a blanket system that may not work for me. I also learned about the services that the campus offers.”

“I liked learning about the food labels. I feel like it's made me more aware of what I'm eating.”

“I learned a lot of new strategies about how to deal with stress and how to live a healthier lifestyle.”

“I really enjoyed it and I am going to take a lot of new skills that I had previously known nothing about. One of the things that really stuck out to me is the inclusion of trans people and people with disabilities. This is the first health class that I've taken that actively included those groups. I really appreciated it.”

“One thing that I learned from the HHS 231 course, and have been able to incorporate that information into my daily life, is how I learn to manage my sleep. What I learn about sleep helps me create a consistent schedule and gives me a healthy sleep habit.”

Campus resources

There are many resources at Oregon State to help you with your physical and mental health and well-being. See OSU Experience Health and Well-Being for detailed resources.

Additional information

Additional information (for example, section, meeting time, location and instructor) for any HHS courses you have enrolled in can be found by logging into Canvas.