Eating disorders seem to be gaining increasing amounts of attention, with articles in various publications featuring anonymous locals who suffer from anorexia, speakers coming to colleges to talk about their struggles with bulimia, and even celebrity feature magazines questioning whether the latest-and-greatest has an eating disorder and if she's admitting it or chalking it up to a stressful schedule or an intense training regimen for the upcoming music video.
Okay, so we get it. A great number of women suffer from eating disorders, and the number of men sufferers is on the rise. College campuses are breeding grounds for these eating disorders. If someone you know has x, y, and z symptoms, help them get the help that they need. Blah, blah, blah.
But how many of us take time to notice that we are constantly surrounded by people who suffer from simple obsession with weight, size, and eating' What about that friend who can't sit down to a greasy meal at the Pub, even once a month, without lamenting what the fries are going to do to her thighs, or how much she's going to have to work out tomorrow to make up for this terrible "lack of willpower'" She may look pretty average, so you pass it off, since you haven't seen or heard about her having a problem with purging and you know she eats regularly. She may still be suffering.
Vanderbilt seems to be a place where no one is unattractive. It's hard to walk around campus and not wonder how the admissions department manages to select so many size 2 women without a photo requirement. It's also hard to be a girl who's not a size 2.
I used to be.
I moved from Tampa, Florida to Atlanta, Georgia the summer before starting 8th grade. It was a tough year and one I'd like to forget. Actually, I think most people would prefer to forget some of their preteen years... Anyway, after nearly a year of struggling, I thought if I lost weight, everything would be easier for me. So I began to cut out "bad" foods from my diet and started running every night. By running I mean, putting along for four minutes until I had to stop and walk. I'd always been athletic, but for the first months after moving, I'd stopped exercising, and now I was feeling the effects.
Soon, running 3 miles a day and eating only grapes and pretzels for lunch became so routine I never thought about it. By the time I entered high school as a freshman, I'd dropped 15 pounds, and could run at least five miles at a brisk pace. I tried out for the track team and made it. I lost more weight.
I started living for the compliments that began rushing in, "You're so skinny! I wish I could fit into jeans that small!" I kept running until I was up to eight to ten miles a day. I made the varsity cross country team the following fall. I kept running faster and faster and getting skinnier and skinnier. No one suspected anything about my eating problems because I strategically planned my days so as to consume my calories when people were watching. They all thought I could eat like a pig just because I was running and because when we went out together, they saw me eat like one.
I starved all week, ran if I "messed up," binged at sleepovers and parties on the weekends and ran 12 miles the next morning to make up for what I'd done. It was easy because all my teammates and I ever seemed to talk about when we ran was how to lose more weight or how much we weighed that day or what time we thought we could reach in the upcoming race if only we could lose three more pounds.
My health started to deteriorate, and I was diagnosed as suffering from the Female Athlete Triad. Once my doctor, my coach, and my mom figured out what was going on and I finally realized that I looked pretty scary, I began my process of steadily gaining weight. Now I'm simply a girl who is constantly thinking about food and weight and occasionally wishes she could be that skinny again, but no one would look at me and think to turn me in for anything. I'm not the typical media case, I'm the case that's everywhere that no one even notices.
Plenty of women may not be laxative abusers or solely celery-eaters, but they may put their lives on hold while waiting to reach an ideal weight. They may eat in secret. They may constantly plan to eat less. They may be so consumed with the thought of food that just when they're thinking of how they "need to lose 10 pounds," they open up a bag of Reese's Pieces. Their moods may be dictated by the number on their scales. They may be constantly terrified of eating too much. They may just simply be obsessed and compare themselves to others everywhere they go.
Okay, so stop worrying and just eat healthily and exercise like a normal person. That's just it though; these thoughts are not normal, even though they may be increasingly becoming the norm. They are indicative of someone who is suffering the same kind of addiction as an alcoholic. Food addiction and weight obsession are things that prey on the mind before the body.
I have been down the serious side of the road as far as eating disorders are concerned and I will never go back. I eat whatever and whenever I feel like now, but it still doesn't mean I don't constantly look at other people and wish I could look like them instead. My brain hasn't caught up with my body yet. Now, looking around, I can easily spot those who are probably doing the same things I was doing in high school. Look around yourself and help your friends if they need it.
For fear of being too preachy and getting any more personal, I'll simply leave you with this question and a few links: What would your life be like if for just one day, you stopped criticizing yourself, stopped participating in conversations centering around the theme of looking or feeling "gross," and instead simply accepted compliments and smiled at other people'
When Being Varsity-Fit Masks an Eating Disorder
Men Feel Pressure To Build Perfect Bodies
Vanderbilt Wellness Resource Center
