Week highlights peer health groups

In spite of the weather, this week is a week to be healthy. All through this week, the student peer health education groups that are run out of the Student Health Office of Health Education are sponsoring a peer health awareness week called "Building Healthy Communities Week," which includes a health fair scheduled for Locust Walk today. "This is an effort to raise awareness about the work of peer health educators and advisors on campus," Director of Health Education Susan Villari said yesterday. Villari commended the University's peer health education groups -- Facilitating Learning About Sexual Health, Guidance for Understanding Image, Dieting and Eating, Students Together Against Acquaintance Rape and the Student Health Advisory Board -- saying they are unique among university groups. "The unique thing about Penn is that [its peer health education programs] are more of a grass-roots effort," Villari said. "Students take the initiative to develop groups by themselves. That, I think, is a plus for Penn." And although activities planned for the week such as an evening Speak Out on College Green on peer health issues and the Health Fair have been cancelled and postponed respectively due to weather conditions, student leaders said they feel confident that the week will still be effective. "This is a great way to unify our groups," SHAB former co-chair and Wharton senior Lisa Chen said. "Everyone's been great in terms of combining our efforts." In addition to today's Health Fair on Locust Walk from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at which all groups, RAP Line and Dining Service will offer interested students literature and advice, the individual groups are offering workshops and lectures of their own. FLASH held a workshop last night on sexual health which was open to students. And GUIDE will be holding an open workshop tonight at 7:30 p.m. in room 310 of Houston Hall on nutrition, the goal of which, College senior and GUIDE Executive Board member Deb Enegess said, is "to dispel myths about nutrition, to give good nutrition information and to teach people to eat well for their bodies." "We want students to realize that we are here as a resource," Enegess added. "We want people to know that there's a place to turn and that there are peers to turn to." As the final activity of the week, STAAR and Connaissance are co-sponsoring a speech on human sexuality by John Stoltenberg, titled, "Seven Mysteries about 'Male' Sexual Anatomy (Or Why Humans Don't Come The Way We Sometimes Think We Do)." Stoltenberg, the author of Refusing to Be a Man, was selected by STAAR as "a dynamic, eloquent, passionate speaker about male sexual values," according to STAAR Executive Board member Paul Kostyack. "We wanted to get a male speaker to come on campus saying that 'Hey, sexuality is something that men need to talk about too,' " College senior Kostyack said, adding that Stoltenberg argues for issues of sexual justice. Villari said that the week is a good representation of peer health education efforts. "They're very well utilized, and every year, they grow," Villari said.