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Penn State kicker Joey Julius, who made public his eating disorder last October, announced Friday in a Facebook post that he had returned to a St. Louis center for treatment.
“I have been struggling over the last couple months with my eating disorder,” Julius said in the post. “It got to the point where I had to return to St. Louis to seek further treatment at the McCallum Place. Recovery is a wonderful and beautiful thing that I am working on.”
The 22-year-old Julius, who will be a redshirt junior in the fall, said he made the post to answer questions concerning his absence from the university and why he did not play in last month’s Blue-White Game, the intrasquad scrimmage at Beaver Stadium that wrapped up spring practice for the Nittany Lions.
A spokeswoman for the football program said Julius did not take part in spring practice.
Julius said he is doing well “and the treatment is helping.”
“There is light at the end of the tunnel,” the Hummelstown native said. “It’s just a very long tunnel.”
The 5-foot-10, 258-pound Julius, known for his booming kickoffs and a couple of tackles that went viral on YouTube, first revealed on Oct. 3 that he had a binge-eating disorder, and that he underwent treatment from early May to late July at McCallum Place in St. Louis.
In an interview last December before the Rose Bowl, Julius admitted that he continued to struggle with his disorder.
“I’ve never relapsed,” he said then, “but if I were to relapse or something like that, I think being honest with it would be so much better than kind of hiding it. Yeah, the pressure is there, but the pressure is there for my own health, not for letting people down.”
Julius said Friday he was “ready to talk” to friends and family, and that he would soon begin a blog on his situation.