CSU student tells story of struggle, success

She was encouraged by an American culture that experts say admires excess and pushes extremes, but the behavior that was gaining Jenna Radovich's admiration was taking her from happy to miserable, from a women's size 6 to children's clothes, and from healthy to obsessed with food and exercise.

"I started losing weight and someone mentioned it," said Radovich, a 20-year-old junior at Colorado State University. "To me that meant that, before, I hadn't been presentable or something."

As her eating disorder progressed, people Radovich knew asked her, "How'd you do it?" and told her they wished they could look like that. They told her she must be so happy.

Overexercising and throwing up, however, was not making her happy.

"The only time I would cry is when I was over the toilet," said Radovich, who two years ago recognized she had an eating disorder and sought help from counselors, family and friends.

It was the summer before her senior year at Pomona High School and Radovich, a centerfielder, was excited about the fall softball season; she wanted her last year of softball to be her best.

That same summer, her dentist removed her wisdom teeth and for five days, Radovich couldn't eat solid foods. She said she lost weight and gained attention.

"I didn't notice anything until people said stuff, and then I kind of liked it," Radovich said. "That definitely kept the cycle going."

During her junior year of high school, Radovich started measuring her meals - literally, with measuring cups - after reading a fitness magazine article about Americans and their misconceptions about portions.

"I never had more than a cup of anything," Radovich said

Soon, however, she had cut that to a half-cup. Friends kidded her that Fitness magazine was her Bible.

Her mother, Mille, had suspected that her daughter might have body image problems, but the food measurement was the "biggest giveaway."

"I knew we had crossed that line," Mille said.

Still, Radovich's grades improved. Her social life was good. On the outside she didn't seem to be suffering. Her friends were concerned, but Radovich said she tricked them simply by eating ice cream.

To maintain energy for softball, Radovich "had to eat." She started exercising excessively to combat eating, something physicians call exercise bulimia.

Radovich would drive home after school, then run about three miles back to softball practice. After three hours of practice, she would run another one to three miles.

"I was basically starving my body ... using exercise," Radovich said. "Because I was an athlete, it was looked at in a good way."

But she was getting light-headed in class in the mornings and once passed out when she stood up. Doctors tested her for diabetes but didn't notice she had dropped 20 pounds.

During her senior year of high school, she wrote a 27-page research paper for an English class about exercise addiction. Still, it would be another year until she recognized the symptoms of an eating disorder that was ruining her life.

The youngest of three girls, Radovich grew up trying to keep up with her older sisters.

"She skipped over childhood toys and went straight to Barbies because they were into those sorts of things," Mille Radovich said.

"Of all my daughters, I never thought it would be her," Mille said.

Women have long been pressured to stay thin, said Dr. Jane Higgins, staff physician at Hartshorn Health Center at CSU for more than 17 years.

"I think it's always been normalized," Higgins said. "How many magazines don't have articles about losing weight?"