When Janele Bayless was in college, she gained the “freshman 15.”
Rather than ignoring it, Bayless lost the weight in a healthful way and has maintained her weight for “five or six years,” she said.
As a wellness coordinator and the only full-time registered dietitian for the Student Wellness Center at Ohio State, Bayless said she wants to help OSU students avoid and overcome the same struggles she faced as an undergraduate.
She works with the Student Wellness Center’s nutrition counseling service, which began in summer 2006.
Bayless said she has had more than 1,400 nutrition appointments in the last four years. Throughout the past year, she has met with 200 students who were new to nutrition counseling and 40 students who she had already counseled.
Before scheduling an appointment, students fill out a nutrition questionnaire and a three-day food log found on the Student Wellness Center’s website. The questionnaire is broken into three sections: general information, physical activity and dietary habits. Participants are asked questions regarding physical activity, unhealthful or dangerous eating habits and typical meals.
Tiffany Zwick, a first-year in health information management and systems, recently participated in a nutrition counseling session with Bayless.
“I never felt insecure,” Zwick said in an e-mail. “And I felt that I could really relate to Janele, and that she was not there to judge me but to help.”
New appointments are common in the fall, Bayless said.
“Usually there’s a big rush to see a dietitian when they first come or are living off-campus for the first time,” she said. “Usually fall and winter seem to be the busiest times.”
Bayless said she doesn’t think the approaching food-associated holidays — including Halloween and Thanksgiving — account for the increase in visits.
Zwick agreed, saying the holiday season did not particularly factor into her decision to meet with Bayless. She wanted to learn how to eat better, achieve her “ideal body” through exercise and eating plans, and avoid the “freshman 15,” she said.
Stephen Valentine, a first-year in engineering, said people he knows would be more likely to work out than attend a nutrition counseling session.
Valentine also expressed concern about the ratio of full-time dietitians to OSU students, saying it might pose a challenge if “a ton of people are trying to get to” one person.
Though the challenges of being a full-time dietitian for the Student Wellness Center include emergencies, such as eating disorders, or limitations, such as not being able to perform blood work, Bayless said she loves working with college students.
“I figure I have one shot to be with them, so I want to make it thorough,” she said. “It’s really neat to see when a person just ‘gets it.’ There’s a life that comes back into them when they realize what they’re doing isn’t working.”
