HealthTrails heads out…

August 9, 2017

The 6-week summer wellness challenge, HealthTrails, may have drawn to a close but with a total of  276,306 virtual miles walked, 651 participants logging in an average of 4 days a week and 438 participants finishing the 300+ miles, it won’t soon be forgotten!

In case you haven’t heard, this year for the annual wellness campaign, Being Well at Yale changed things up a bit in order to offer a more accessible, diverse and inclusive wellness program which focused on more than just physical activity alone. HealthTrails was an online holistic lifestyle challenge which focused on four important health behaviors; exercise minutes, produce servings, meditation, and restful sleep. 

Practicing one or more of these four health behaviors as many days a week as possible moved participants along their chosen international trail of choice - there were six beautiful and fascinating trails to choose from, each one totaling 300 miles. Along the way participants saw amazing images, read interesting facts and learned tasty recipes from each location.

The challenge was open to faculty, staff, post docs, graduate and professional students. Participants from all across campus and satellite locations joined the fun! Throughout the challenge, there was definitely some healthy competition going on between many of the teams until the very end, especially the SOM Globetrotters with 4,989 total miles and the Pew Pews with 5,083 total miles! Whew! 

Team to travel the farthest:

The Pew Pews with a total of 5083.8 virtual miles!

Seated on rock: Katarina Wang. On horseback: Amrit Dhawan. Standing photo: left to right: Sara Hashmi, Matthew Burak, Mariam Mahmoud, Ji Huang. Sitting on chairs left to right: Rithy Meas, Khadijeh Alnajjar

 Team drawing winners:

  • Peabody West Campus Bi-Peds (Maureen White, Lynn Jones, Renee Leary, Brooke Mealey, Nicole Palffy-Muhoray, Gregory Watkins-Colwell, Nathan Utrup, Tim White)
  • Development Does (Julie Parr, Tamiko Collier, Michael Fitzsousa, Karen Francis, Pamela Hartley, Zsuzsanna Somogyi, Erin Shreve)
  • Flab-U-Less (Varsha Menon, Donna Brandt, Bemen Habashi, Douglas Heller, Margaret Leiss, Laurie Thomas, Dawn Shaddinger)
Individual to travel the farthest:

Steven Geringer with a total of 753.1 total miles (*correction)

Individual drawing winners:
  • Paula Jackson*
  • ​Julian Calrke-Grant
  • Janet M. Miller
  • David Backeberg

Great work, everyone! And remember to keep an eye out for the 2018 challenge coming in spring!