People love to talk about food, especially college students. But, for some reason, it’s so hard for these same people — people who will gleefully tell you about their two bagels with shmear for breakfast and their personal pizza for dinner — to talk about eating disorders.
Did you cringe a little bit, reading that? Does the idea of discussing eating disorders out loud make your stomach churn?
I hope it does. Because I have been living with that cringe, with that awful stomach-churning feeling, for more than three years.
It has been 1,187 days since I was first able to say, out loud, that I have an eating disorder.
It has been 772 days since I was hospitalized for complications with the flu and a serious kidney infection.
I have seen my best friend run herself into the ground because of her need to be thinner, to be perfect. I have seen my little brother in tears at 12 years old because he was so worried about his older sister. I have seen myself in a hospital gown, with thin cheeks and thinner wrists, because I spent months whittling away at my diet, cutting just a little bit here and just a smidge there.
This week is National Eating Disorder Awareness week.
According to the National Eating Disorders Association, eating disorders are incredibly complex conditions that arise not from a desperate need to be “skinny” or “pretty,” but from a combination of long-standing behavioral, biological, emotional, interpersonal, psychological and social factors. People — most commonly women — with eating disorders don’t simply want to look like the people in magazines or on TV. The general public seems to place the blame for development of eating disorders solely on the media, and while the media certainly plays a part, it is only a fraction of the underlying circumstances that prompted the development of these disorders.
Approximately 20 million women and 10 million men in the United States have suffered from a clinically significant eating disorder. However, even with these millions of cases reported, many cases go unreported. The rate of development of eating disorders has been steadily increasing since 1950, and it is very common for one or more other psychiatric disorders, such as alcohol or substance abuse or depression, to accompany eating disorders.
The general unease surrounding public discussion of eating disorders has done nothing but deter sufferers from seeking the treatment they need. Speaking from personal experience, the fact that no one was willing to even mention eating disorders just pushed me even further from seeking treatment.
It took a week-long hospital stay to get me to finally consider seeking help, to finally consider the fact that, yes, maybe what I was doing was just on the side of life-threatening — and I’m one of the lucky ones.
One study spanning three decades found that people with anorexia nervosa had a death rate six times higher than that of the average population. And that's just one eating disorder, not the numerous variants of disordered eating such as bulimia, binge eating disorder or the not-as-well-known EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified).
You may be thinking, “Well, that’s definitely not good, but what can I do about any of this?”
It is so simple to be part of the change in consciousness toward eating disorders that this society so desperately needs. The best and most impactful advice I can give you is to watch.
I can see people all across campus with disordered eating habits. Now, I definitely have a home-court advantage because I myself struggle with an eating disorder, but if you harbor even just a bit of concern, watch and you might be able to see something you didn’t see before.
Do you have a friend who maybe doesn’t eat all that much? Come to think of it, you’ve never seen her or him eat a full, well-balanced meal around you. Or, maybe you only ever see that one friend eat huge, not-so-good-for-you meals on a regular basis. Is your roommate’s concern over how she looks just vanity, or is it something much deeper, much worse?
Now, maybe you’ve already identified someone who has shown signs of disordered eating. Maybe you’re concerned, but you don’t know what to do. For those of you in these sometimes-uncomfortable situations, let me offer you a few quick tips on how to approach someone with an eating disorder.
Not all eating disorder sufferers “look” like they have an eating disorder. Unfortunately, the public misconception that all eating disorder sufferers are emaciated skeletons is only true in the most extreme cases. Never, ever discount someone’s struggle with an eating disorder just because they don’t fit the picture in your mind’s eye.
Don’t ask someone “which” eating disorder they are struggling with. Again, the public misconception is that eating disorders are simply black and white; you have either one or the other. I cannot tell you how often I am asked that question and how often I fume at the person asking it.
It’s OK to talk about it. If someone had come up to me and asked why I didn’t eat anything at school or why I couldn’t walk around for more than 10 minutes at a time, I would have collapsed with relief. When something is on your mind 112 percent of the time and you feel like you can’t talk about it, you go a little crazy. The first time I said out loud that I had an eating disorder, I wept tears of joy just because it wasn’t strangling my mind anymore.
Now, I’m speaking from personal experience, not for all eating disorder sufferers. If you're interested in learning more about eating disorders, or even if you aren't, I urge you to visit http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/.
You could save someone’s life just by showing an interest.