Maintaining a healthy, balanced lifestyle is an ancient battle which prevents many people from even starting. However, according to Julie Haenisch, one of the nurses at GBS, many students are slowly becoming more aware of their health and are striving towards a better, healthier life.

According to Julia Jakubiak, a sophomore at GBS, her Polish culture prevented her from beginning a healthier diet and from transforming into a vegetarian.

“During the holidays, my grandparents would always bring around meat […] so I would always be forced to eat it,” Jakubiak said. “[However] my grandparents this summer moved to Europe, and I also got my wisdom teeth out, so I figured that would be the perfect timeline to switch to being a vegetarian.”

One of Jakubiak’s main reasons to change her previous lifestyle was to better her self-image as well as boost her confidence. As she works to achieve her desired figure, she is becoming more comfortable with her own body type.

“I feel like especially in our generation, people have issues with their self image,” Jakubiak said. “I realized that the only person who can change me was me, so if I’m unhappy about something, I’m going to work towards it. In terms of my self image, I have not always been the most confident person out there, but ever since I started to eat healthy, I’ve been more comfortable in […] wearing shorts or stuff like that now.”

Caitlin Strong, a freshmen at GBS, attends a partnering workshop camp and a Joffrey summer intensive, which is a summer camp in New York focusing on contemporary ballet technique held at the Joffrey Ballet School. Unlike Jakubiak, she ultimately decided to change her lifestyle to sharpen her performance for her summer camps and to improve on her overall health.

“Well, I have a camp this summer, that I really want to be nice and fit for because it takes a lot of energy and strength,” Strong said. “… I normally maintain, and do portion control. Today I had a cookie at lunch, so I’ll have something healthy for dinner.”

Differing in motives from Strong and Jakubiak, freshman Claudia Tardif also watches what she consumes on a daily basis with the help and support of her friend, Mikayla Minihane. According to Tardif, she also uses technology like fitbit to help keep her on track with her goals. Through her use of technology and portioning Tardif is able to maintain her objectives of a lifestyle.