SCU opens doors to healthy living

SCU Health Clinic manager Marlene Assim is looking forward to providing quality health care to the public now the clinic is open for business.Marc Stapelberg

MARLENE Assim is a middle-aged woman who wants to remain fit and active as she gets older.

By happy chance, she is also the manager of a new health clinic at Southern Cross University - and one of the first to sign-up for a full check-up.

As of Monday, members of the public can join Ms Assim, pay a small fee and receive a health assessment from final year health and human sciences students, under the eye of a registered exercise physiologist.

An individualised health management plan will then be prepared and presented to the "patient" a few days later.

"As well as the theory, students need practical, hands-on experience and this is the best way to give them as much clinical exposure as possible," Ms Assim said.

Patients will not be offered a gym program, she stressed, but a program they can carry out at home or in the workplace.

"It can include gym and other exercise regimes," she said.

The clinic's opening coincides with a recent survey of nearly 1300 Australians which found almost half the population - 10.2 million people - exercised only rarely.

This despite half of Australian adults and a quarter of children being classified as overweight or obese.

The National Fitness Survey, compiled by Galaxy Research, interviewed 1268 people aged 18-64. It found 45 per cent of Australians did not exercise regularly, which it defined as two to three times a week.

Women were less likely to be active than males, while those employed in part-time jobs were less likely to exercise regularly compared with those working full-time.

Shockingly, one in six people aged 50-64 admitted to never exercising.

The SCU clinic is part of a community outreach by the Faculty of Health and Human Sciences, and includes providing naturopathy, osteopathy, massage and acupuncture treatments, all for $35.

Membership of the university gym is also available.