 In this episode of The Pressures of a Student Athlete, we interviewed a former Cal Women's soccer player who shared her story with us that her eating disorder was triggered by athletic pressures. Did the pressure to fit an athletic body type standard lead you to change your eating habits? I'd say, yeah, I feel like people look at you in a certain way and there is a pressure to maintain a certain body type. And then my freshman year of high school, I suffered toward my ACL and ACL in this case so anyone was going to be out for a while and I had a lot of pressure and I was depressed about that for a while. And I would get just jokes about from my friends and family like, oh you're out playing more like, haha you're going to gain weight and stuff and that kind of got to my head and that's what led me to... I started eating less, a lot less and then eventually sometimes I would eat a lot and then I would feel so guilty about it and eventually it led me into bulimia. How did this affect both your mental and physical state? Yeah, I'd say it definitely affected both my mental state, there would be times where I wouldn't want to do it and I would just sit there and cry like by the toilet or whatever and it really depressed me a lot and then along with not being able to play soccer. And then for my physical state, I definitely felt weaker a lot of the times and then even when I did come back to play soccer, my bulimia didn't just go away. Did you reach out for help or did somebody else take notice? Remember I was laying in bed in the morning and I was still half asleep and my mom came into my room and went to my bathroom and I could hear her like moving around things but I know she was doing eventually I got out of bed, go to the bathroom and I walked into the bathroom and she posted, she printed out all these papers with information and pictures and like post them all over my toilet and like just like the mirror and how it affects your body and stuff and I just started like falling and crying and I went to her room and she was all in crying and like seeing my mom just like so sad about it and she just like felt like she had failed us there because of it it just made me feel like okay not really need to like stop this because it's affecting my loved ones. Do you have any advice for anyone that is in the position you were once in? Honestly like it seems like a good idea it's like oh not me or throw it up but in the wall room you're like even at the time like I wasn't losing weight from doing it like if anything it slowed my metabolism down even more and I think that was an important like realization that like to see food differently like that's more like a fuel and like your body needs those nutrients and like eating what right to like speed up your metabolism and like fuel your body is like way more effective when not eating or throwing up. Join us next week for the final episode you're not alone.