STARKVILLE — Kelly White knew she could make a difference for the Mississippi State athletic department.
While working at Oktibbeha County Hospital Regional Center, White already had a working relationship with MSU Director of Sports Medicine Mary McLendon, and many Bulldog athletes came to see White at the hospital. As a result, White talked to different MSU teams on campus about eating right, but she wanted more involvement, so she met with different people in the athletic department and laid out a plan as to why it needed a dietitian for all sports on campus.
White’s plan was well received, and she was hired last July and charged with getting all of the Bulldogs’ student-athletes to start eating healthier.
“What we knew was that we couldn’t make everybody change at one time,” White said. “We knew it would take three years maybe at least to get more and more people to really buy into eating healthier.”
White, an Indiana native, played volleyball at the Mississippi University of Women in Columbus for two-and-a-half years, so she was familiar with what student-athletes deal with every day. She wanted to see a waterfall effect at MSU where two or three people started making healthier decisions and that would lead to 10 and then 20 people making those decisions until everyone was eating the right foods.
Football is the toughest sport for her to deal with because there are so many players on the team and there are so many different position groups that have different weight sizes.
She tried to meet with each player so she could get a feel for what their eating habits and preferences when she was devising a method to use to get everyone to eat healthier.
“Trying to reach each personality is challenging,” White said. “For some players, it takes a couple of years for them to really trust me. They want to listen to what I say, but for me to be around enough to help them make changes and to constantly help them in doing that, I think that’s a challenge.”
White transferred from MUW to MSU to work on an undergraduate degree in nutrition, and received a master’s degree in 2004. She spent two years at Noxubee General Hospital in Macon before spending six-and-a-half years at OCH.
During football season, White said she rarely works with the upperclassmen. That work is reserved more for freshmen. She said many of the freshmen have to gain weight when they arrive on campus.
Football players basically live at the Leo Seal Football Complex during the season. They have morning meetings, afternoon meetings, and practice. White and her staff make sure there is breakfast every morning that includes smoothies, cereal, yogurt, apple sauce, chocolate milk, and fresh fruit.
There also is an afternoon snack before practice, a snack after practice, and Aramark caters supper every night.
“I think it helps an awful lot of setting a plan, of having the right foods out for our guys to eat, but also the educational aspect of how those foods help them and what foods can hurt them,” MSU coach Dan Mullen said.
Mullen has seen a change in his team’s eating habits and that he doesn’t see “fast food bags everywhere.” He sees guys trying to make better decisions and to eat healthier.
It’s easy for White to control what the football players eat when they are in the football building, but she can’t be there when they go home at night or when they eat lunch at Templeton. She does make suggestions, though.
“I try to get them to make healthier choices,” White said. “Every restaurant is going to have something they can get. I just try to modify what’s offered, so they can know that they can still go.”
White will make sure MSU eats the right things before it plays Auburn at 6:30 p.m. Saturday and after the game.
“We’re a big developmental program,” Mullen said. “I don’t think you really pay close enough attention to what you eat, how you hydrate, how you take care of your body to maximize your development.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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