Throughout November, Kaiser Permanente is raising awareness about how to improve Youth Wellbeing as part of its “Wellbeing 365: Stress Less & Thrive” initiative in partnership with the city of Santa Monica.
Through the partnership, which launched in September along with the city’s most recent Wellbeing Survey results, Kaiser Permanente and the city produced a series of short videos, in English and in Spanish, that offer tips and advice from many of Kaiser Permanente’s medical professionals on how Santa Monicans can improve wellbeing in the different parts of their lives.
The above video is “about ensuring kids have the outlets and the tools they need to ensure their wellbeing,” according to Kaiser Permanente officials.
The video highlights some concrete steps young people can take to improve their wellbeing, including getting outside and exercising.
“One thing I really want to recommend for our kids and teens is to really decrease that computer time,” says Dr. Linda Mirdamadi in the video. “Get them away from their computers, their laptops, their phones. Get them outdoors.”
The video also features resources that the city has created to help parents better prepare their children for entering school.
According to the results of the city’s Wellbeing Survey, while nearly 85 percent of Santa Monica students are in good enough physical shape to pass the standard health fitness exam, a significant number of Santa Monica students deal with emotional issues.
Kaiser Permanente’s video addresses the importance of things that can improve your physical health, like eating a healthy diet and getting enough sleep, as well as your emotional health, like striking a balance between work and play, finding things you are good at and doing more of those things, and finding someone to talk to about negative emotions.
“Developing the ability to build and maintain healthy social connections is critical to the success of students in our Santa Monica schools,” the video’s narrator, Neibe Reynoso says.
“I think by creating community resources for youth, it creates a culture within them, sort of an expectation. It’s going to create a lot of ripples in their own personal lives, at their school, in their home lives,” says Dr. Juan-Carlos Zuhberbuhler in the video.
Disclosure: Kaiser Permanente contributed to Santa Monica Next’s coverage of wellbeing issues in Santa Monica. Kaiser Permanente does not have editorial control over Next’s coverage of this topic or any other topic.
