Posted 9:28 p.m. April 15
by Rati Bishnoi
U-WIRE (DC BUREAU)
(U-WIRE) WASHINGTON- Kickboxing, inspirational messages and oh yeah, don’t forget the mango mania smoothie. Stress relief was the call of the day as the first ever National Confidence Collage for College Women visited George Washington University this week.
Undergraduate men and women entered the castle shaped white o.b.U (Oh Be You) tent set up in the middle of campus, to indie rock music and confidence tips such as ‘Just Sweat It’, ‘Go the Extra Smile’ and ‘Cleaning. It Does A Room Good.’
The tent hosted kick boxing stations where visitors could relieve stress by boxing life size dummies called Slammen and stations where they could make postcards to be pasted on the National Confidence Collage.
Postcards ranged from messages saying ‘I love myself” to ‘I love my vagina.’
Dena Vassallo, a senior executive for the national tour said each activity provided a break for undergraduates from their daily life. Gina Gentry a graduate student at GW said the tour’s activities provided entertainment and relieve some of the stress of the day.
Another GW graduate, Emily Sherinian said she was attracted to the activities because she used o.b. tampons regularly and wondered what the manufacturer was doing on campus.
“The kickboxing definitely made me feel powerful and aggressive,” said Sherinian while removing her black boxing gloves.
When asked about her level of confidence Sherinian said she felt more confident her graduate years than in her undergraduate years.
“Confidence is a process. It has a lot to do with parents, friends, and family. They can build it up and tear it down,” said Sherinian.
o.b. Tampons in partnership with Youth Intelligence, a youth marketing firm, found more than 75 percent of female undergraduates felt stressed out. Nearly half of the surveyed women between the ages of 17 and 23 believed stress contributed to lower confidence levels and feelings of depression and low motivation.
The survey found college women in the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area were more career-minded than most regional areas. 72 percent of the areas young women reported feeling more confidant finding a good job than a boyfriend.
Grades and money were the leading causes of stress for women in the area and a majority of women cited increased stress levels as directly affecting their self-esteem.
The Oh Be You tour has visited 11 schools in the last year including Arizona State University, University of Southern California and the University of Maryland and plans to visit Rutgers University and University of Pennsylvania next.
The tour is sponsored by o.b.Tampons the national tampons manufacturer.
