UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – For the second year, University Health Services (UHS), a unit of Student Affairs, is offering a weight management program for students through its nutrition clinic.
The weight management program is designed to help graduate and undergraduate students with the following health concerns—prediabetes, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, overweight/obese and metabolic syndrome—and address the role nutrition can play in improving those diseases.
Participants meet with a registered dietitian six times during the 12-week program. The fee for an appointment is $28 per hour, and it can be billed to many insurances.
“There are 10 topics that we cover, everything from changing eating habits to exercise,” clinical dietician Maria Blesh said. The program is tailored to each individual student and their goals and challenges.
The dietitians employ a number of strategies to help participants stay motivated, such as setting realistic goals and focusing on progress not perfection.
The program was created because weight management was a cause of concern for a lot of students, community health educator and clinical dietitian Stacey Jones said.
“We designed the program to provide students with tools and resources for managing weight and information about how to make healthy food and physical activity choices throughout their adult lives,” Blesh said.
In 2015-16, the Nutrition Clinic had almost 900 appointments to help students with eating disorders, disordered eating, food allergies, GI issues, vegetarian/vegan diets and general health and wellness.
For students with health problems not concerning weight loss, UHS offers individual nutrition counseling.
“Nutrition is important because if you fuel your body well it is going to help you perform well. Research has shown that there are links between nutrition and immune system function as well as memory and learning,” Jones said.
Appointments for an initial consultation with a registered dietician for nutrition counseling or weight management can be scheduled online at http://studentaffairs.psu.edu/health/myUHS/ or by calling 814-863-0461.