A Fit Student Body

Men's Fitness Magazine ranks Baylor in good shape at ninth among the Top 25 Fittest Colleges in America in 2006. 
The magazine consulted with The Princeton Review for the second year in a row to discover which colleges and universities are winning the war against the nation's ever-expanding collective gut. The magazine surveyed nearly 12,500 students from the country's top institutions to determine its list of the 25 Fittest Colleges. 
Men's Fitness graded Baylor, based on the student surveys, with an: 
A- for Intake (limited intake of fast food, cigarettes, alcohol)
B- for Behavior (amount of physical activity each week, amount of less structured exercise, amount of time spent doing sedentary activities with the exception of studying, how many hours of sleep per night)
A- for School Offerings (fresh fruit, nutritionist, extended gym hours)
A for Campus Culture of Fitness (Does your school have a physical fitness requirement for non-varsity athlete undergraduates? Do you feel as though the campus community in general promotes vigorous physical activity? How fit do you think your campus is?) 
One of the intents of the survey is to showcase the colleges and universities that have found the way to balance academic excellence with athletic acumen throughout the whole student body. Baylor and TCU were the only Texas schools in the Top 25. At the top is Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. 
Dr. Kim Scott, director of campus recreation at Baylor, said the university is committed to the total development of today's Baylor student. Baylor Campus Recreation offers comprehensive, quality programs and services that enhance healthy lifestyles founded on the principles of integrity, sportsmanship and Christian values. 
"So many things can be related back to the physical development and so many people focus only on the physical. ...we are concerned with the holistic lifestyle patterns of students both while they are here and long after they leave the university," Scott said. 
When Baylor built the 156,000-square-foot McLane Student Life Center in 1998, Scott and her staff spent hours researching top-of-the-line equipment to purchase for the student body. 
"We wanted to make a statement that our students deserve the best there is -- not just 
varsity athletes -- so we did just that," Scott said. The 10,000-square-foot center offers weight stations and cardiovascular areas as well as training, nutrition education, massage therapy and fitness assessments.