Students, like former wrestler Marcus Davis, know how well dieting can affect eating disorders, a component of Monday night's presentation during Eating Disorders Awareness Week.
"Sometimes I would only have half a salad and half a water bottle to keep my weight down," he said.
Davis, a junior at Ball State University, said extreme dieting like this allowed him to lose five pounds in a day to meet weight requirements for various matches. When he got to college and stopped wrestling, he started to gain weight. Now, he's taking part in a weight loss challenge program, which he says is helping him stay healthy.
The Counseling Center offered a presentation about healthy eating habits and the eating disorders that can result from extreme dieting during Eating Disorders Awareness Week.
Ellen Lucas, assistant director of the Counseling Center, said she's glad it falls a couple weeks before Spring Break.
"I've heard anecdotally about students who restrict their calorie intake and work out a lot in preparation for Spring Break," she said. "I get concerned when I hear those things."
She said students try to be healthy, but they don't necessarily know how to go about it.
Lucas warned against taking energy drinks or supplements that advertise boosting energy or metabolism. She said these things have stimulants that raise blood pressure and heart rates.
"Even athletes that are in good shape have heart attacks and suffer paralysis [from supplements]," she said.
Some students have countered her advice by saying it was recommended by a doctor. She said you can't always take their word for it.
"Well, Atkins was a doctor, and he's not around to talk about his weight loss plan anymore," she said.
Robert Atkins was a doctor who emphasized a low carbohydrate diet and then suffered from a heart attack deemed to be a result of his diet plan.
Junior Amber Werling said most important advice she got from the presentation was to adopt a healthy lifestyle instead of dieting.
"Dieting is short term," she said. "Ninety percent of the time, after people stop dieting, they gain the weight back plus more."
Lucas said students can be misled by commercials and diet programs.
"When you fail, it's like you really failed, but actually the diet failed," she said. "It's unrealistic, unhealthy and dangerous."
Lucas said Eating Disorders Awareness Week has two purposes — discussing healthy eating habits and offering eating disorder screenings. These screenings are available Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the L.A. Pittenger Student Center Talley and from 5 to 9 p.m. at Bracken Library. Students who are found to have an eating disorder will then be referred to the Counseling Center for a more thorough screening.
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