An apple a day used to keep the doctor away.

Penn State has adopted a nationwide initiative called "Healthy Campus 2010" to improve students' lifestyles.

"We tried to identify the major health issues," Linda LaSalle, coordinator of education at University Health Services (UHS), said. "We decided to address stress, sleep difficulties, depression and mental issues, nutrition and exercise."

Alcohol was also considered, Ryan Collins, student member of the Healthy Campus 2010 committee, said.

"We felt that alcohol issues were being tackled by other groups on campus and a little less useful for us to go after," he said.

JoAnna Moyer, clinical manager of women's health services at UHS, said she was disappointed sexual health was not chosen as an initiative by the committee, but agreed that the other objectives are also leading health issues.

The task force, comprised of student affairs staff and students, will be analyzing data from a 2004 survey and other health-related data collected from the students, LaSalle said.

"Essentially we're trying to set some healthy-related objectives to get to by 2010," LaSalle said.

There are many programs available to students on campus now to improve and help them lead healthy lifestyles, LaSalle said.

The task force wants students to know where they can go for healthy help and how to improve the services the university offers students, she added.

Collins said the group is working out the basics before students will see any changes on campus.

"We are still trying to gather the right people for the job," Collins said. "We hope to get people for fitness and intercollegiate athletics involved to help with certain issues."

The group plans to spend a lot of time working with housing and food services, Collins added.

"A lot of things can lead to depression, but housing situations commonly cause depression among students," Collins said.

The concept was initiated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, LaSalle said.

"Prior to 2000, they decided to initiate a program across the country called Healthy People 2010," she said. "Then American College Health Association, ACHA, took the same idea to develop ideas for college students called Healthy Campus 2010."

Healthy Campus 2010 developed 10 nationwide goals, from which Penn State chose five," Cynthia Burwell, chair of Healthy Campus 2010 national committee, said.

Collins said he believes this program has the potential to be very beneficial to students.

"I think some of the things lacking is that there isn't much student input in a lot of programs on campus," he said. "Hopefully it will build an infrastructure for health that we can always be improving on campus."

The number of participating institutions is restricted to available resources on different campuses, Burwell said.

"It's not too costly, but there is an initial data collection cost," she said. "We are recommending the national college health assessment, which is a survey asking college students about their lifestyles from nutrition to sexual health."

Burwell said these surveys can be costly with large universities, but some choose to use their own surveys.

"Nationwide there are a good 30 to 40 institutions participating in some form or type of initiative with Healthy Campus 2010," Burwell said.

There is a new initiative every 10 years with new goals, Burwell said.

Starting in 2007, the national Healthy Campus committee will be analyzing the measures taken by the participating universities and forming 10 new goals for Healthy Campus 2020, she said.