A Nutrition Guide for College Athletes in Eating Disorder Recovery
When thinking about nutrition for athletes, our focus at Metrowest is often on college students getting back into sports and training after spending months in recovery. We work with a lot of folks navigating this challenging transition.
Returning to a sport you love being part of is exciting, but doing so while recovering from an eating disorder is its own kind of work. The training schedule doesn’t pause for your healing, and college life in and of itself adds its own layer of complexity.
- Dining halls
- Team meals
- Comments from teammates or coaches
- A culture that often praises disordered behaviors
That’s why this guide isn’t about macros or meal planning. We want to leave those numbers to your treatment team. Instead, we want to use this opportunity to take a look at the research around fueling and performance, and how you can return to your fall sport while sticking with your recovery.
If you or someone you love needs help through this transition, we’d love to talk with you. Fill out this form or give us a call at: 617-332-2282.
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Why “Eating Enough” Is the Actual Performance Strategy
One of the more useful things research on athletes has shown is that adequate, consistent fueling isn’t a nice-to-have for training. It’s what allows for eating disorder recovery, plus adaptation, performance, muscle growth, and more.
In fact, a large meta-analysis of over 6,000 athletes found that nearly 45 percent showed signs of low energy availability, a state where intake doesn’t match what training and daily life require.
The downstream effects included changes to metabolic rate, hormone function, bone health, and immune function.
Plus, a case series on Division I collegiate cross-country runners tracked athletes across a full season and found that periods of low energy availability had many negative effects, including:
- Hormonal disruption
- Bone health decline
- Drops in performance markers
Fueling consistently isn’t a compromise. It’s a strategy that works for both eating disorder recovery and performing well in your sport.
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Navigating Team Meals and Dining Halls Can Be Hard
A lot of collegiate sport culture still treats food as something to manage, earn, or optimize. Which means enduring triggering conversations about topics like “clean eating” and restricting.
If your team’s food culture feels like a landmine, we want to make sure you’re not trying to push through that alone. This is where your recovery team can continue to be an asset, even back on campus:
- A registered dietitian who understands sports nutrition can build a plan that accounts for training demands without turning food into a numbers game.
- A therapist, whether through campus counseling or an outside provider, gives you a place to work through the harder moments team culture brings up.
- A team physician or athletic trainer who’s in the loop can advocate on your behalf, flagging concerns to coaches or adjusting training load without making a big deal out of it.
What Recovery-Informed Fueling Includes
Every recovery plan looks different, and yours should be built with your own team, not from a general guide. Broadly, however, research and clinical practice specific to athletes in eating disorder recovery point toward a few shared principles:
- Focus on structure over restriction. Focus on regular meals and snacks throughout the day, focusing on a mix of “safe foods” and new foods if this feels challenging.
- Remember that rest days require fueling too. The instinct to eat less on lower-activity days runs counter to what recovery and long-term health actually require. Your body doesn’t stop repairing on a rest day, which means you still need to adequately fuel!
- Tune back into hunger and fullness cues. Part of recovery is rebuilding trust in your hunger signals after they’ve been overridden or ignored. Stay tuned in as your training increases; your body will likely ask for more, and that’s okay.
- Put performance metrics on the back burner for a while. Work with your treatment and sports team to find out how you can continue growing and improving without being involved in the numbers of it all. This can be triggering and wise to avoid, at least at first.
- Take weight and body composition off the table as goals. Especially early in recovery, tracking either one tends to reinforce the exact patterns treatment is working to unwind.
Reminder If You’re Supporting an Athlete in Recovery
Coaches, teammates, and friends often want to help and don’t know how. We get it. This is challenging for you as well. You want to do and say the right thing but don’t know what that is. Here are some ideas to keep in mind as you navigate this season with your athlete:
- Don’t comment on their plate, portions, or body, even when it’s meant as praise. “You look so strong” can land the same way “you look thinner” and that’s very harmful, always, and especially right now.
- Let the athlete set the pace on training and competition. Encouraging they make a return to their full training program before they’re ready adds pressure they may not be able to handle.
- Skip food talk altogether. Unless it’s in a productive manner, related to their treatment, it’s best to avoid discussing what you ate or what they’re eating, even if it’s in a complimentary or celebratory way.
- Ask them what would be helpful instead of guessing. This can be as simple as asking: “Is there anything I can do that would make this easier?” If they don’t have an answer, tell them you’ll check back in and keep the conversation open.
- Trust the treatment team’s lead. If a dietitian or therapist has set a plan, the most supportive thing is backing it, even when it looks different from what you’d expect from an athlete.
👉 Also From Our Blog: Supporting a Loved One with an Eating Disorder During Times of Transition
Eating Disorder Recovery for College Athletes is Possible
Eating disorder recovery and athletic performance aren’t at odds. In fact, the research on adequately fueling for sports is also often what’s supported in recovery. Staying nourished and fueled supports recovery and performance.
Still, this transition can be incredibly difficult for an athlete in recovery. But they don’t have to do it alone. We’d prefer they stick with their treatment team, even as they return to campus, or find new support nearby if necessary.
We’re here to support you or your athlete through this challenging transition. Fill out this form or give us a call at: 617-332-2282.
If you or someone you know is struggling with disordered eating, the National Alliance for Eating Disorders helpline (1-866-662-1235) offers free support and can help connect you with treatment resources.
