Abstract
There is an increasing concern on promoting healthy lifestyle which is a quality, safe and affordable way to prevent many diseases. However, college students do not adopt healthy lifestyles and have poor knowledge of risk factors of lifestyle diseases. And there is lack of evidence to demonstrate that traditional Chinese medicine educational course could promote healthy lifestyle. This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of implementing traditional Chinese medicine using a general education course in “Health Maintenance and Food Therapy in Chinese Medicine (HMFTCM)” class to promote the healthier lifestyles for college students. Items from Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System related to HMFTCM were selected to test students’ lifestyle before and after the course. The experimental group of this study was HMFTCM students (n=120), and the students of another health-related course “Disease and Medicine (DM)” (n=98) was used as control group.Upon completion of HMFTCM, students became more physically active, changed their diet and spent more time on sleeping. In contrast, DM students did not change these habits in daily lives. The results demonstrate that a traditional Chinese medicine health education program, could be effective to improve the health-related behaviors.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 4762-4767 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | International Journal of Development Research |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Publication status | Published - Jun 2015 |
