As I was sitting in the airport, reading my Women's Health Magazine, I came across an article that seemed like perfect support for a project my physical performance class is working on. The project is a survey for current and former athletes from Meredith College, inquiring about their physical activity and nutritional habits. Our goal is to see if former athletes continue to be active and healthy post-college.
This article provides support for our survey. A woman gained 100lbs over the years post-high school by continuing to eat like she did in high school, but without keeping up with her activities of track, basketball, and softball. This also relates to one of my original posts about how sports nutritionists are needed to teach athletes how to stay healthy throughout their life and not just during their seasons. This woman worked out so much throughout high school, that she appeared healthy despite her unhealthy junk-food eating ways. It wasn't until she stopped being active that those habits really took their toll by adding extra weight, and causing high blood pressure and diabetes.
Once these medical conditions arose, she finally decided to take control of her health and her life. She began altering her habits by replacing her three daily sodas and bag of M&M's with fresh fruits and veggies and cooking at home. By adding 3 days/week of gym sessions, she lost 45 lbs and was ready to step up her routine even more. Almost a year later, she was off her blood pressure and diabetes medications and a few months after that, she was back to her college weight. This woman is the perfect example of an athlete who suffered from poor nutritional habits and once the physical activity ceased, tangible medical conditions manifested. Luckily, this woman realized her mistakes and took control of her life.
Through our survey, we hope to see that Meredith College did a better job of preparing their athletes for the real world.
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