USU gym rats fight the national trend of college students' weight gain

By Sam Broadbent

December 18, 2007 | With a beep of confirmation Tim Ray's Utah State University identification card is scanned and he is admitted into the Fieldhouse on the USU campus. The basketball courts are bustling with male and female students fighting for their right to stay and play. The smell of sweat and rubber mats floats through the air as he works his way up the stairs to the "weight area" where he will begin his routine.

Ray's daily routine of going to the gym is shared by a portion of the other 24,421 students at USU.

Tate Secrist, also a USU student, wakes up every day at 8 a.m. to begin his daily routine. Secrist attends classes for the first few hours of the day, followed by a take-out lunch from his favorite fast food joint, which he usually eats with his girlfriend. Then he finishes his day off with sitting behind a desk crunching numbers and figures for an insurance brokerage. The sweat from his day comes from stress and too many stairs.

A study by Cornell University found that on average, college freshman gain about 0.5 pounds a week, which is almost 11 times more than the average weight gain among 17- and 18-year-olds and almost 20 times more than the average weight gain among American adults. So the question remains as to if Secrist's job and school should take the first priority or if head to the gym for some physical activity should take the lead. Secrist is not alone, another study, from 1995, featured in Preventive Medicine, found that of 937 undergraduate students in a Midwestern college 52.1 percent of the sample claimed to be inactive physically.

When asked why he chooses to workout every day Ray replied, "I love the feeling I get after I run; emotionally I just feel better the rest of the day."

Ray doesn't limit his workouts to running though. Each day, he chooses a muscle group to work on and for at least an hour those muscles get stretched to their limits. If he has a spotter the muscles are even forced beyond their normal abilities.

More recently, exercise among college students has become a growing trend. According to a study at the George Warren Brown (GWB) School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, symptoms of exercise dependence are becoming more common among college age students. The study also found that women exhibited more dysfunctional attitudes toward eating -- indicative of possible eating disorders -- and also a greater tendency to excessive and dependent exercise. So as of yet it appears some students have not found the halfway point between inactivity and obsessive behavior.

"I think it's in a guys nature to want to always be better and stronger," said Ray. "However, I think girls deal with a lot more critical pressure from the media to look be a certain size and weight."

Trish Yonker, a USU student who has been working out off and on for the last six years, said, "I originally started working out to look good to others around me, but now my main motivation is to feel good."

Yonker explained that in the beginning she was trying to impress her boyfriend. She said he would only compliment her on her body and that just created more pressure to continue to look good. Since they broke-up she feels she has a much better reason to workout and that is to feel good instead of just look good.

Yonker's advice to girls feeling the pressure to look a certain way was to not let those feelings control them and dictate their lives, but to use the pressure to help motivate them. And from there begin to form better reasons for exercising. Regardless of why they choose exercise if it is done consistently it will help.

"When I finally started to workout to make me happy instead of others that's when I began to enjoy it most," said Yonker.

Ray loves being active and plans on workout the rest of his life. He said working out gives him energy for the rest of his day and that makes a huge difference in his performance as a student, which translates to his future success. When Ray exercises he doesn't workout to bulk up but to built strength and endurance as a result he still is relatively small compared to many who workout on a daily basis.

"I don't worry about my size very much because I know what I am capable of doing," said Ray.

Ray has a full schedule like many students at USU, but has made the decision to make exercise a priority. The time and duration he works out varies from day to day. Ray said that time and duration mean little in comparison to the importance of consistency. When a student proves to themselves that they can be committed to a healthier lifestyle they instantly begin to feel better; even before then begin the process of working out.

When a random sample of students on campus were asked if they workout and why the results were consistent with Ray's feelings. Approximately 44 percent worked out on a weekly basis for the purpose of feeling better about themselves. However, many of those who workout to feel good also admitted to also wanting to look better physically.

Ray said he thinks most people begin working out to look good or at least better. Then as they begin to see the changes their focus moves from how they look to how they feel.

"Working out provides the individual with a higher quality of living," said Ray. "I want to be just as active as I am now when I am in my 50s and 60s."

As Ray has said being a fit student is one of the keys of being a happy and successful student regardless of gender, but to many students the question remains as to the definition of fit. Tim Ray and Trish Yonker both agreed being fit is more mental than physical for them.

So later on when Ray leaves the Fieldhouse and Yonker leaves the Sports Academy they will be setting an example of fitness and happiness for those around them to look to for reasons to choose to become more fit.

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