Aryn Sanderson
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America’s happiest city. America’s fifth fittest city. America’s most health-obsessed college?
It’s a stretch on paper. Compared to other universities across the nation, Cal Poly’s eating disorder rates are on par with the national college average, according to 2013’s Healthy Minds Study.
But in conversations with approximately 30 students about body image at Cal Poly, it became apparent that while diagnosed eating disorders might be rare, disordered eating — choosing to “drink dinner” in alcohol calories, crash cleanses, extreme calorie restriction — is widespread.
“We know that students at Cal Poly struggle with body image, but the statistics really aren’t that different than the national average,” said Hannah Roberts, outreach coordinator for Counseling Services. “It’s a problem here, definitely, but it’s no more of a problem here than at any other college campus across the nation.”
While the statistics don’t reflect an abnormal rate of eating disorders, the campus culture is centered around health, fitness and appearance — at times to an extreme.
A carrot and a cracker.
That was a typical day’s food intake for nutrition senior Natalie Wallace back in high school. Wallace shared a “hunger” journal with her friends, and they bonded over popping pills to suppress their appetites, working out obsessively and starving themselves.
But at 17 years old — after hitting 110 pounds at 5-foot-8 — Wallace went into treatment. Now, six years and 35 pounds later, Wallace and her Cal Poly friends bond over cooking healthy meals and viewing “fitspiration” Instagram profiles.
“Even though it’s in a better light (than high school), we still are totally, totally, constantly thinking about what we’re eating and our physical activity,” she said.
In fact, only 3.8 percent of Cal Poly’s student population is obese, compared to the national college campus average of 10.2 percent. And the amount of students who have exercised three hours per week or more over the past month is 66.6 percent, 13.6 percent more than the national average, according to a 2013 Healthy Minds Study.
Roberts called students’ emphasis on healthy living “pertinent and pervasive.”
“We’re an attractive campus, we work out,” she said.
Trying to “fit” in at one of the top 25 most attractive schools in the nation can be an emotional and mental strain, added Valerie, who spoke to Mustang News on the condition that her name be changed.
Valerie, a nutrition senior, developed binge-and-purge bulimia during her third year at Cal Poly. For more than a year and a half, she would make herself vomit at least three times per week and over-exercise regularly, running half-marathons on the treadmill multiple times weekly. She lost more than 20 pounds in nine months, a notable difference on her 5-foot-5 frame. It has been three months since her last binge and purge episode.
“Just walking around campus, everyone looks so confident, and everyone has their running shorts on and their reusable water bottles in hand and they’re on their way to the gym, and I kind of wanted to fit into that mold of the ‘perfect’ Cal Poly student,” she said, noting the “Poly Dolly” stereotype. “We have a social climate at Cal Poly, and even in San Luis Obispo, that really holds fitness to a high standard and a high priority, but that level of fitness is often manipulated at Cal Poly to be solely about body shape and size.”
Hayden Richter, a nutrition senior and personal trainer at Cal Poly’s Recreation Center, said this is reflected at the Recreation Center, too.
“You see them all the time, those guys with huge chests and no legs,” he said.
And many students feel the need to try and keep up.
“You see it when guys bench press a lot of weight, and other guys start envying the guy on the bench, but what you don’t see is that people hurt themselves all the time trying to push themselves to bench more weight, or stretch farther, without having the context that he was a football player or she was a gymnast for her whole life,” Richter said.
Still, trying to be healthy is a noble goal, particularly at a time when just over 30 percent of the 20-39-year-old American population is reported to be obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“But there’s a fine line between behaviors and behaviors that can be problematic,” Roberts said. “It’s very easy to go down an obsessive path, to take things too far, and I think it’s very difficult for students to navigate that fine line.”