What is the Wellness Center?

Located in P-231, the Wellness Center allows students to seek professional mental health services, destress with friends, engage in activities designed for relaxation and have a quick snack. 

Around 300 students visit the center each day for therapy appointments, quick breaks, eating lunch and relaxing, according Wellness Coordinator Michelle Ramos. Students can drop in at any time between 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, including class time. The center is also open to those enrolled in summer school. When the Wellness Center is closed, students are directed to Allcove in Palo Alto, which is a separate wellness center. 

If a student needs to connect with a therapist, they can either have a drop-in session or refer themselves to their counselor or Ramos for ongoing therapy sessions. 

For drop-in sessions, students are prompted to fill out a short form on an iPad by the entrance so that the wellness team is aware of their needs. They are connected to a therapist right away if  one is available. 

Students have up to three drop-in sessions without officially notifying anyone. Counselors may be notified in case of academic concerns or stressors, and parents may also be notified unless they are a barrier to mental health. However, according to Ramos, about 97% of students who believe that their parents are against therapy find their parents to be supportive. All content during therapy sessions always remains confidential with a few exceptions. 

The Wellness Center’s staff is comprised of Ramos, Wellness Outreach Specialist Rosie Castillo who focuses on promoting the center and mental health, Mental Health and Wellness Associate Dani Warren, Mental Health and Wellness Therapist Paul Hickey and PAUSD Mental Health and Wellness Therapist Brittney Tabel who provide counseling services to Gunn students.

Over the past school year, the Wellness Center has organized various activities, ranging from decorating sugar cookies and painting to bringing animals on campus. These events not only help students hang out and unwind, but also destigmatize mental health struggles.

“People tend to internalize (their emotions) because they believe that no one else understands what it is like or no one else is feeling that way,” Castillo said. 

According to Castillo, destigmatizing mental health issues will make students more willing to reach out for help. 

“We wouldn’t shame anyone for going to the doctor for getting an annual breast exam for breast cancer,” she said. “Why would we want people to feel ashamed that they have to seek support for therapy?” 

Student response to the Wellness Center

Results from the Panorama Survey from fall of 2023 show that 56% of respondents have often felt sad and 31% respondents often felt worried, increasing from fall of 2022 by 12% and 6% respectively . 

 For junior Mia Saad, who visits the center once a week, the Wellness Center is a safe space.

“I go whenever there are drop-ins to take a break or for food,” she said. “Talking to people is nice, especially therapists, and it is also just a quiet place to relax. They (therapists) help you clear your mind and help you look at other thought processes. If you have issues, then you can think and scroll down on your own thoughts, but they can help you think from a different perspective.”

However, some students believed that the Wellness Center lacked visibility, making students feel unsure of utilizing the center for their mental health needs. One such student is sophomore Milcah Morrison, who upon coming to Gunn, recalled the Wellness Center being only briefly mentioned during the freshmen orientation.

“It wasn’t enough information for me to be like, ‘Oh, I can go there. That’s a safe place,’” she said. “If we invest more into wellness and mental health, I think that people will definitely start to consider going there in general.”

Although the center originally had a 15-minute time limit placed as an agreement by stakeholders when the center was first established, the mandate was lifted after a student’s death. It is planned to  remain lifted for the rest of the school year and transition back in the fall of the 2024-25 school year. 

“We knew that some students were in grief or just upset, and we wanted to make sure that they didn’t feel rushed to go back to class,” Ramos said. 

With varying usage of the center, Freshman Tim Landt prefers to use the center for a quiet study space and finds these rules beneficial for self-control. 

“The no-electronics rule helps me stay on task without being distracted on my phone,” he said. 

According to freshman Isabella Cruz, many teachers have been supportive toward students visiting the Wellness Center during class to take a break. Students can ask their teachers to write them a pass during class or ask a wellness staff member to notify their teacher through email.  

“(Teachers) are always saying, ‘Feel free to go to the Wellness Center whenever you need to,’” she said.

Growth and future development of the Wellness Center

Moving forward, the Wellness team wishes to continue to promote student mental health and well-being, with an emphasis on normalizing mental illnesses and reducing stigma around the discussion of mental health. 

“As students go through their high school career, maybe the juniors and seniors are finally opening up to us since we are familiar with them,” Ramos said. “But then, (the issue is), as the next group comes in, we have to kind of start all over.”

The wellness team has also been working closely with the Parent Teacher Student Association to set goals for the upcoming years and plan mental health education workshops. 

“We also want to have parents share their concerns with us, since not all students come to us,” Ramos said. “But if we can impart some guidance and tools to parents, maybe they can take it home for their students.” 

Since the death of a student, the wellness team has made efforts to become more visible and promote their resources. Recently, the team has made an Instagram account, @gunnwellnesscenter, with information on how to sign in for a drop-in session and how to make the most out of the Wellness Center space. The team has also set up tables in the senior quad during lunch with activities promoting mental health and designed a logo for the wellness team. 

“We want shirts with our logo sign so that everybody knows, ‘Oh, this is the wellness team and these are the people that we are going to talk to when we are in distress or upset,’” Ramos said.

The team also wants to work more closely with other departments, including the admin and the counseling team, to communicate about students’ concerns and ways to implement more help. 

The wellness team has seen growth in the number of students in the center, with over 1500 visits in the past two months. Castillo shares that she has come across more people addressing mental health issues and helping their peers. 

“We have more occurrences of people coming up to the Wellness Center and being like, ‘Hey, I don’t know this person but they posted this on social media and I’m concerned about them. It seems kind of serious,’ or even (helping) their friends (by saying), ‘Hey, my friend sent this text message yesterday and I’m worried about them. Could you please check in on them?’” she said. “I feel like this represents how you guys are just so insightful, aware and have really good instincts when to seek out support for your friends. As a student population, you guys are so resilient, and I think it speaks out about what you guys are involved in and push through.” 

To reach out to the wellness team, email gunnwellnessteam@pausd.org or fill out this form.

This small yet simple incident is a shared experience among many. A name is much more than a word. It not only is a way to be addressed, but it also appears on legal documents for important milestones such as driver’s licenses and diplomas. A name carries identity, culture and meaning. For some, their name may hold significant value because of the loved ones they were named after or who chose it. Even for people who may not believe that their name is unique, a name acknowledges all identities: who you are as a person, what your background is and what your family values. A name can also cause cultures to clash, as some people are faced with trying to assimilate in America while maintaining their identity through their name.

Castillo’s parents named her Rossana (roh-sa-na), a combination of her grandmother’s and mother’s name. She began experiencing problems with her name in middle school where there weren’t many children who could pronounce her name correctly. Since Castillo’s name is uniquely spelled with two s’s and one n, many people had a hard time pronouncing it. “I remember thinking, ‘I just wish I had a white name,’” she said. “It didn’t sound pretty to me anymore, which is really sad. I ended up not liking it anymore.”

As a result of this mispronunciation, Castillo adopted a nickname. “I ended up telling people that I was going by Rosie,” she said. “Honestly, that was a lot easier for everybody to pronounce.” Since then, Castillo has always introduced herself as Rosie to others. Her family members are the only people who call her Rossana.

Castillo further explored the importance of her name when she traveled to Mexico in high school and connected with her culture. “Seeing where our ancestry was and seeing all the different, beautiful names there allowed me to grow more pride in my own name,” she said. During this trip, she also visited her grandmother’s grave and discovered more about the person she was named after. “Knowing the kind of woman that she was and finding out more about her through my dad and family, came with a lot of pride,” she said. “I remember thinking, ‘Why can’t I be less ashamed?’” After that trip, Rossana became a special name to her. “It feels more right for people to call me Rosie and to keep my name sacred,” she said. “I don’t want people to call me by my first name because that’s something that’s really personal to me now.”

Sophomore Yayoi (ya-yo-ee) Tomaszewski was named after Hinamatsuri, a Japanese tradition in which families name their daughters Yayoi during the month of March. “My name comes with a lot of history and tradition, and that’s really special to me,” she said. “When someone says it’s just a name, brushes it off or mispronounces it, it’s as if all the history of my name goes away and doesn’t matter.” In middle school, Tomaszewski started going by Yoyo since it was easier for people to pronounce. “When they kept calling me Yoyo, I didn’t feel as special,” she said. So, in high school, Tomaszewski introduced herself as Yayoi and even put the phonetics on her Instagram account to prevent mispronunciation. “I’m glad I put the phonetics in my bio, because in case someone felt awkward asking how to pronounce my name, they could always look at my bio,” she said.

Indian American junior Sahar (suh-haa-rr) Rao describes his name as one of a kind. Rao has learned to embrace the name “Sahar,” a Persian feminine name. He sees a parallel between his name and limited-edition objects. “I’m one amongst a few, not one amongst many,” he said. Rao also relates his unique name to the film “Toy Story.” “There’s a scene in ‘Toy Story’ where they zoom out from this one Buzz Lightyear, and you just find out there’s an entire store full of Buzz Lightyears,” he said. “Having been named Sahar, I feel that in one way, I’m not a mass-produced Buzz Lightyear.”

Senior Badal (b-ah-d-uh-l) Tamang isn’t bothered when people mispronounce his name. “I don’t mind if people don’t say it correctly because I know it’s a difficult word to say,” he said. People often made bottle or bottle-flipping jokes when he was younger, but he went along with them. “It never bothered me,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s just friends joking around, so I understood that.” Despite mispronunciation and jokes, Tamang has never thought of changing his name. “My parents gave it to me, and I don’t want to change that,” he said.

Freshman Sevin (se-vin) Kwon encounters a different problem than people’s mispronouncing his name: people’s misspelling it. “A couple of times I’ve tried identifying myself as Steven or Stevie just to prevent people from misspelling my name,” he said. Kwon has thought about changing his name in the past, but ultimately became content with it, as a lot of funny moments have stemmed from it. “Most people already know me as Sevin: the kid with the number as his name,” he said. “I’m Sevin. I’ve always known myself as Sevin, and I’m probably always going to be known as Sevin.”

After junior Heeseo (HEE-suh) Jeong experienced teachers’ often mispronouncing her name, she decided to take initiative to spread awareness about name pronunciation. “Through my years as a student, I’ve had a wide range of teachers with a wide range of abilities in name pronunciation,” she said. “After seeing several teachers working hard to improve their skills in pronouncing people’s names correctly, I wanted to share the skills and insights that I’ve gained from just having a name that is considered hard to pronounce.” Jeong started by giving a presentation to some Gunn teachers and eventually created a video that was sent to the entire Palo Alto Unified School District. Now, she is looking to expand this project to Santa Clara County to suggest solutions for name pronunciation in the classroom.

Tomaszewski believes that everyone should search for the meaning of their name or find out why their parents chose it. “When you know the meaning of your name, you feel proud of it and it makes you feel special,” Tomaszewski said. “Everyone deserves to feel special in some sort of way.”

For one, TikTok content is easily digestible. It’s easy to create an account, and an endless stream of videos will appear on a custom-tailored For You page, even if a user doesn’t choose to follow anyone. This For You page is one of the main draws of the app. “This feed is powered by a recommendation system that delivers content to each user that is likely to be of interest to that particular user,” ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, said in a press release explaining the app’s algorithm. “Part of the magic of TikTok is that there’s no one For You feed—while different people may come upon some of the same standout videos, each person’s feed is unique and tailored to that specific individual.”

The “tailored” TikTok algorithm, however, belies a darker reality. In the past, TikTok has admitted to blocking videos created by individuals with facial disfigurements, autism and Down Syndrome from appearing on the For You page. Last year, “The Intercept” published a document given to TikTok moderators advising them on content to restrict: “Abnormal body shape, chubby, have obvious beer belly, obese, or too thin (not limited to: dwarf, acromegaly)” was one rule. “Ugly facial looks (not limited to: disformatted faces, fangs, lack of front teeth, senior people with too many wrinkles, obvious facial scars) or facial disformities (not limited to: eye disorders, crooked mouth disease and other disabilities)” was another.

The justification issued by the company is that such content is highly vulnerable to cyber-bullying and the creator—rather than the content—is the focus of the video. Yet, regardless of intention, the end result is the same: the For You page, the heavily visited and viewed centerpiece of TikTok, defaults to promoting content from skinny, attractive and young creators.

A Narrow Beauty Standard

There’s no better place to witness the beauty standards promoted and perpetuated by TikTok than “content houses,” collaborative groups of popular creators working together to create videos. The Hype House, boasting alumni such as Charli D’Amelio, the most followed creator on TikTok, and Addison Rae, the second most followed creator on TikTok, had a photoshoot with its original 14 members—all of whom were white and fit a narrow, constrained definition of beauty. Similarly, the Sway House, a content house consisting of 16-to 22-year-old boys, is perhaps most well-known for videos of the creators working out without shirts on and showcasing toned abs.

The trickle-down effect? When ordinary teens scroll through their For You page, the uniform beauty standards scream out at them. For senior Hannah Schendel, who herself boasts close to 30,000 followers on TikTok, the repetitiveness is more than noticeable. “Not everyone wants to look like that, but then I feel like seeing it over and over drills it into our minds that that’s what we’re supposed to look like,” she said.

Sophomore Kyle Reyes also experienced a similar feeling after scrolling past the regularly promoted influencers on his For You page. “All the super famous guys, like the Hype House—I feel like they’re all like the same men, in terms of their build and their hair and their race,” he said. “Every day I would see these guys, and they’d have these perfect bodies. It kind of changed my perception of perfect, and I wanted to look like those guys.”

As a result, Reyes recently decided to delete TikTok. Rather than actively taking steps toward diversifying beauty standards that appear on the app, it seems as if TikTok only continues to reinforce a harmful standard on a platform reaching millions.

And, of these millions, it’s the teens who are especially susceptible to self-comparison, according to psychiatrist Maria Daehler. “[Teens] are going through puberty, and sex hormones are creating differences and changes in [their] brains that are causing them to be more aware of their own body,” Daehler said.“There are literally parts of their brains that are changing to be more aware of differences between them and another.”

The popular content that teens witness, for the most part, does not reflect the diversity of bodies in society. “What gives us this standard of beauty doesn’t necessarily tend to be very diverse,” Wellness Outreach Coordinator Rosie Castillo said. “I think it does give us a really tiny perception of what’s beautiful and what’s acceptable and what’s normal, and the folks that deviate from that may not necessarily get as much attention, which is unfortunate because really, [social media] should reflect our society just the way that it looks.”

And it’s not like creators are au naturale on TikTok. Before filming a video on TikTok, digital beauty filters may blur a creator’s skin, erase away any blemishes or pimples, and make thelips appear larger while whitening their teeth and altering their face shape. A clear message is sent: in order to be considered “beautiful,” lips should be bigger, skin clearer and the face skinnier.

Such filters reflect directly on self-esteem. “‘Are we looking at authentic images reflected back of ourselves?’ is a question we have to ask if we have to put the Zoom makeup fixer on our face every morning,” Daehler said. “If I’m putting it on because I think that I need to look better than who I am, that speaks to low self-esteem, and we internalize that more and more.”

Unplugged from Reality

The COVID-19 pandemic, predictably, has only worsened the discrepancy between beauty on TikTok and beauty in reality. When students cannot interact with each other in person, the only main exposure they get to other teenagers is through social media, especially TikTok.

Senior Shira Tamler, a frequent TikTok user, noted how social media has impacted her self-confidence during the pandemic. “I think [TikTok] gives us really unrealistic self-standards and makes us way too hard on ourselves, especially in quarantine, where you do not see people a lot,” Tamler said. “You’re just with yourself, and thinking about how you look. Being on TikTok kind of makes it a little bit worse because you see all these girls, and you see a lot of people saying really mean things about them.”

Hurtful comments and a general lack of empathy online only worsen the problem. When there is something acutely “wrong” with a person, people in comment sections frequently point it out, and bullying has become a frequent problem. “Sometimes I’ll see someone who’s not traditionally or conventionally ‘pretty,’ but then everyone will be very positive in the comments,” Schendel said. “But then, other times, like I remember seeing this one girl and people thought that her eyes were a little bit far apart, so they just kept commenting that on her post.”

It’s not just the creators who are negatively impacted. “Let’s say there’s this guy,” Reyes said. “He has a perfect body and someone comments, ‘Wow, you look weird.’ People are gonna think that’s not a perfect body. Do I have to do even better than that?”

Schendel has noticed a similar effect from TikTok comments. “I think it could definitely have a really bad impact on people’s perceptions of themselves because of other people making negative comments about their appearance,” she said. “They’ll probably think less about themselves and maybe even develop insecurities that maybe they otherwise wouldn’t have had.”

The end result is a strongly negative atmosphere on the app. “It’s inevitable that you’re going to see a bunch of unrealistic beauty standards and people cyber-bullying each other in the comments,” Tamler said. “At this point, it’s so easy for people to bully others on the app that it’s become normalized.”

It’s also harder to view what’s beneath the surface online. According to a BBC survey of female university students, women reported that they tend to compare their own appearance negatively with both their peer group and with celebrities. The comparison group that had the strongest link to body image concerns, however, were the distant peers, or acquaintances.

In other words, women are often aware of that fact that celebrities’ social media posts are heavily edited to appear artificially “perfect,” while it’s already understood close friends don’t have perfect lives, despite what it might look like online. Yet when it comes to the in-between acquaintances, it’s difficult to perceive the extent of editing tools used—and the artificiality of what’s portrayed—making it easier to force a comparison.

While the effect is sometimes subconscious, the constant reinforcement of a certain beauty standard can have a lasting impact on teens’ perceptions of themselves. Castillo frequently interacts with students and, before the pandemic, watched students engage with TikTok. “The way that [TikTok] has been negatively affecting our students is pretty apparent,” Castillo said. “There are mental health issues that stem from cyberbullying and body-image issues because of what they see online.”

One example? “What I Eat in a Day” videos are a common phenomenon in which users on TikTok share often unrealistic diets and unhealthy weight loss methods. “I think it’s promoting a lot of eating disorder behaviors,” Schendel said. “I see really young girls in some comments be like, ‘I’m not gonna eat today because I don’t look like that.’ It’s definitely very concerning.”

Seeing certain body types on social media can create the perception that there’s an ideal body type for teens. “Social media makes it easier for people to see the wide differences in the way that we look,” Castillo said. “The money that you see YouTubers and Instagrammers spend[ing] on altering themselves to look a certain way—it’s like they’re trying to fit into a mold. And when the user can’t, for whatever reason, it creates some distress. We’ve
seen definitely an increase [of distress], and it’s widespread.”

With each passing year, it seems, the age at which children are first exposed to social media becomes younger and younger. On these platforms, kids have access to content past generations certainly never had, but there’s also an immense pressure that their parents didn’t feel. “When [our parents] were our age they got to live more in the moment, and they didn’t have to worry about looking a certain way over social media,” Tamler said.

Part of the pressure adolescent creators feel is to look the way popular, older influencers look, resulting in a skewed perception of what behaviors and appearances are “normal” for any given age group. “There are 13-year-olds who look like they are 20 [on TikTok].” Schendel said. “That is weird for me because I am 17, but I don’t even look like that. So how does a 13-year-old look like that?”

Creating New Movements

In the face of all this, new movements are striving to promote different and diverse beauty standards; there has been an increase in social media influencers gaining popularity for their body positivity videos and posts. 16-year-old Sienna Mae Gomez, for example, is known for showing videos of herself after eating, when she’s bloated, or for squishing parts of her body that women are traditionally insecure about—such as stomach rolls and cellulite—in an attempt to normalize such features. Other creators such as Victoria Garrick, a former Division I athlete, frequently discuss taboo subjects about women’s bodies, including counting calories and an “intuitive eating” approach.

Body positivity activists, such as pop singer Lizzo, have also posted videos of their bodies in their natural state to challenge the idea of the “perfect body.” Lizzo recently made a video displaying her body at all angles, discussing her struggles with body positivity and encouraging viewers to accept themselves, no matter their size. “I’m so proud of you for making it this far in a society that gives us a headstart into self-loathing, that hands us a dysmorphic mirror and leaves us desperate to catch up with who we think we should be,” she said.

Besides individual creators, some brands have also shown their support for more inclusive beauty standards. For example, Dove has committed to “always feature real women, never models” in their ads, and launched the Dove Self-Esteem Project, aimed at educating the next generation on body confidence. The American Eagle brand Aerie has also made steps toward promoting women of all body types in their ads and has pledged to no longer airbrush their models.

Daehler thinks that campaigns like these provide a more hopeful outlook for teens.“The more that [girls] click and look at social media, they tend to have a lower sense of [body-image],” she said. “But there are some studies that are suggesting that the way the body is presented on social media can counteract some of that. So, instead of just blocking social media or blocking teens from seeing social media, show multiple different types of bodies and focus more on women’s personality and their intellect and not objectify them so much in terms of just their physical appearance.”

Even though body positivity content is hardly the focus of TikTok—while Gomez has amassed over 14.5 million followers in the last few months and Garrick has 703,000, these numbers are only a fraction of Charli D’Amelio’s 108 million—the steps being made by these creators and brands are showing that there is push for a more diverse idea of beauty on social media.

As for TikTok, viewers are urging the app to highlight all types of creators. “TikTok should promote different body types, different races and pull away from the current standard that’s set in stone,” Reyes said. “What they’re doing right now with only putting muscular, white guys or skinny white girls on the For You pages, is not [acceptable]. They definitely should pull away from that and promote more diverse people in terms of skin, race, body type and content.”