10/5/2016 What it means for a Male, Overweight Athlete to live with an eating disorder - ARead Now“Due to my increase in not only weight but also depression and anxiety my team physicians started to notice not only a change in my overall happiness but also my performance as a normal human being.” Penn State kicker Joey Julius became a viral sensation his freshman year for his sheer size. The internet celebrates whenever one of the largest players on the field scores a touchdown or does anything other block an opponent. Julius was a star kicker, making a highlight reel-play last season with Michigan’s kick returner.
In the midst of media’s spotlight, Penn State’s 258-pound kicker Joey Julius opened up on a brave Facebook post about his struggle with an eating disorder. Just this Monday, the 21-year-old confessed that he spent the past three months in a treatment center for his anxiety and binge-eating disorder. Throughout the last 11 years of his life, Julius has not only been diagnosed for binge-eating but has also showed signs of bulimia through terms of purging from extreme anxiety placed on himself. “Due to my increase in not only weight but also depression and anxiety my team physicians started to notice not only a change in my overall happiness but also my performance as a normal human being.” The social stigmas of eating disorders are just overwhelming, and Joey’s story contradicts many of these stigmas. For one, we tend to associate eating disorders with only “skinniness,” disregarding and almost laughing in disbelief when “not skinny” people confess their mental illnesses. Let me remind you that Joey weighs in at 258 pounds, and is in a profession that emphasizes large size. And yet he has been living with anxiety, binge-eating, and bulimia. Another big misleading assumption that we attach to eating disorders is that they are a “women’s issue” when in reality, 1 in 15 men in the U.S. will deal with this at some point in their lives. This reputation has made it that much harder for men to open up about something that more of them suffer from than they think. Joey’s brave and respectable decision to share with the public his battle despite his gender, weight, and profession has sparked a huge discussion, inspiring others to share their stories as well. http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/story/penn-state-football-258-pound-kicker-joey-julius-eating-disorder-100316
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December 2016
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