Understanding and Promoting College Student-Athlete Health: Essential Issues for Student Affairs Professionals

Collegiate student athletes are faced with the same developmental challenges and stressors as their nonathlete peers, but they are also expected to deal with the challenges of athletic involvement (e.g., time demands, physical demands, travel schedules). Such additional demands may put athletes at greater risk for experiencing physical and psychological health problems. The current article was written for student affairs administrators as an overview of the current knowledge about several health-related issues commonly faced by collegiate student athletes (i.e., training and overtraining, alcohol, drug use and drug testing, depression and suicidality, dysfunctional eating behaviors, injury, and hazing), and to provide assistance to these administrators for making decisions about the best practices for dealing with such issues.