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27 August 2018
Photo Barend Nagel
How do you start living a healthy lifestyle? Arina Engelbrecht, a wellness specialist in the Employee Wellness Division at the University of the Free State (UFS) says it only takes a few changes. Her passion is to motivate people to live a balanced life.
Being active enables a person to live life to the full. “Aim to exercise 150 minutes a week, which equates to 30 minutes five times a week in order to experience health benefits like prevention of lifestyle illnesses, better sleeping patterns, decreasing stress or anxiety and feeling more energetic,” says Engelbrecht.
Some of the initiatives Engelbrecht and her team drive are the Healthy Lifestyle Challenge, Park Runs in Bloemfontein, and the Healthy4Life Pedometer Challenge, which encourage staff members to become more physically active. “Everything we do, think or feel is influenced by what we eat! It is therefore important to eat a balanced diet. Healthy food = quality fuel = good health = sustained energy = peak performance,” she explains.
Pedometer Challenge
In the space of eight weeks 240 staff members from all campuses walked 54 000km as part of the Pedometer Challenge. Engelbrecht and her team mobilised 53 active teams from all three campuses. Three of these teams emerged as the winners as they exceeded the target of 1 300km which is the equivalent of walking to Cape Town. In September 2018 the Challenge is going national as the North-West University competes against UFS.
Celebrating women
This Women’s Month Engelbrecht’s message to women of Kovsies is: “We must start embracing who we are and start believing in ourselves, whether it is in the workplace, in business, or at home.”
Two Kovsies receive Stals Prize
2006-08-07
At the recent awards ceremony of the SA Academy for Science and Arts the Stals Prize for multi- and interdisciplinary teamwork was awarded to Proff Louise Cilliers (from the University of the Free State's (UFS) Department of English and Classical Languages) and François Retief (former rector of the UFS). They have published more than 40 articles in accredited journals during the past 10 years, a number of which were published in book form last year as "Health and Healing, Disease and Death in the Graeco-Roman World". This was Prof Cilliers's second award from the Academy. In 1991 she and EL de Kock received the Academy Award for translated work.