24 The chocolate research has already delivered interesting results — dark chocolate, eaten regularly and in the right dose, significantly increases the resting metabolism of test subjects, to the tune of approximately one pound of fat a month. Katie Presler, a 27-year-old VSU alumna who graduated with a Master of Exercise Physiology in Fall 2018, led the charge on the chocolate research, making it her final thesis project. Her reasoning for the decision was simple — “What person doesn’t want to show that chocolate is good for you?” Presler’s fascination with chocolate began long before science was involved. “When I was in elementary school, I loved eating chocolate,” said Presler, who is originally from Beaumont, California. Her childhood affinity for the sweet caused her Sunday School teacher to dub her the “chocolate monster” because of her tendency to pick out all the chocolate from a bowl of candy, no matter the kind or flavor. Presler decided to own her obsession, drawing her own chocolate monster while daydreaming during church services and even choosing “chocolatemonsterfreak” for her first email address in middle school. After earning a Bachelor of Science in nutrition and food sciences from California State University, San Bernardino, in 2014, Presler set her sights on VSU for grad school. As she interviewed with Dr. Michael Webster, associate professor of exercise physiology, she heard possible topics for her thesis project, but none of the ideas really intrigued her. “Some people might have found those topics interesting, but I knew that if I had my head and my mind and all of me in this process, I wanted to be obsessed with it,” she said. That’s how chocolate became the focus of her thesis. She had heard that dark chocolate had long been researched for helping to prevent cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and even some types of cancer, but throughout the heaps of research on the food, there was no concrete study on the link between dark chocolate and metabolism — until now. Interested subjects were easy to come by when an email went out to campus in early 2018 saying people were needed to eat chocolate for science. Hundreds of people responded. Presler, who worked as the sports dietitian for VSU Athletics, decided to study athletic females between the ages of 18 and 25 who exercised for at least five hours per week. Katie Presler’s lifelong love of chocolate and passion for healthy living led her to study the link between dark chocolate and metabolism. Photo: Contributed