Rachel Lunn – a Role Model for Healthy Living

By Karen Graham
As a child growing up in Cavan, Rachel spent a lot of time outdoors with her brother Greg, riding, running, camping, snowboarding and playing soccer. Her love of outdoor action was solidified during a senior semester at Crestwood Secondary School when she signed up for Physical Education teacher Larry Pearson’s popular Personal Leadership Development course. This unique program combines strenuous physical development with studies in environmental resource management, leadership skills and biology and culminates with an extended wilderness camp experience. Her decisions since that experience reflect her commitment to serious physical development and an appreciation for the beauty and diversity of the physical world.
Rachel celebrated the end of high school with a five-month-long backpacking expedition through Europe which whetted her appetite for travel. Upon her return, she boarded a Greyhound bus and headed out west to experience another part of the world. She planted trees near Prince George B.C., then moved to Vancouver where she took on a slightly tamer outdoor job working for a landscaping firm for several years. To appease her appetite for travel, she has visited Brazil, Mexico and travelled the entire length of South America.
With all that travelling, Rachel has concluded that British Columbia is now her permanent home. She describes herself as having fallen victim to the “West Coast rap”. She is enthralled by the natural beauty and diversity of the region which boasts rainforest and desert-like environments, beaches, mountains and glaciers. It provides unlimited opportunities for Rachel to pursue her love of all kinds outdoor activities. She spends much of her time hiking, camping and exploring the forests and mountains and snowboarding at Whistler, which is an hour’s drive from the city. She has added mountain biking to her sporting repertoire and felt the painful consequences of her inexperience. Rachel feels like she fits in here. North Vancouver is one of the most active and fit cities in North America. She loves the laid back lifestyle and the “fitness freaks”. Some would even say she is one.
Rachel works out every day and has for many years. She is currently working on becoming certified as a Personal Trainer and Group Fitness leader through the B.C. regulator. This fitness routine is no casual commitment for Rachel. She has begun to compete internationally in fitness competitions with remarkable success, placing 4th and 2nd in her first two outings! Her next challenge takes placed in this November.
To achieve this level of fitness takes more than exercise. Since high school Rachel has been a vegetarian and is obsessed with nutrition, global food issues, food sources and production processes. She wants to make choices in her consumption that support her health as well as the health of the planet. She believes her commitment to clean eating and exercise has had a huge impact on her energy and her positive outlook and wants to inspire others to adopt a healthy lifestyle. To that end she is currently working her way through a Bachelor of Science degree in nutrition at the University of British Columbia in between her fitness classes and competitions. A career in health and fitness she hopes will provide her with the opportunity to help combat the epidemic of obesity plaguing North America which is triggering significant rises in preventable illness. Her mission seems to be to inspire others to take better care of themselves. She is quite an act to follow!
While Rachel loves the west, she does feel torn as her life is “in two different places”. She misses her family here and hopes to convince them to join her on the west coast one day. Maybe the opposite argument could be made- that we need her inspiration here more than Vancouver does. Crestwood should perhaps recruit her to pitch the Personal Leadership Program and encourage more of our high school students to engage in healthier lifestyles. In any case, Larry Pearson and his colleagues should be proud to see how far one of their students has taken their lessons on health, the environment and personal development.