 "Photo: SAMANTHA COLBY/The Daily Campus")
Almost 20 percent of college students said they had struggled in the past or are currently struggling with an eating disorder and 75 percent of those students never sought help, said Katherine Hampton, a clinical social worker at the Counseling and Mental Health Services during a talk on Tuesday.
The talk, a part of National Eating Disorders Awareness week (NEDA) was co-presented by director of nutrition services Amy Pomerantz and addressed faculty, staff and students about the warning signs of an eating disorder, how to speak with someone suffering from an eating disorder and places on campus to refer the person.
Hampton said that this talk has been presented during NEDA for the past three years with help of the UConn Eating Disorder Interdisciplinary Team to help spread awareness around campus. The team is made up of therapists, nurses, nutritionists, psychiatric nurses and physicians.
According to Hampton, the rate of an eating disorder is much higher in western countries.
“Our culture is obsessed with appearance,” Hampton said to students and faculty. “The ideal is becoming more unrealistic.”
Our culture’s standards of ideal beauty created by the media is a large contributing factor to eating disorders.
In the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe was the ideal body type in the media and she was around a size 12, Pomerantz said. As the years continued, the ideal body image in the media for women got smaller and smaller and for men, got larger and leaner.
“If a ‘Playboy’ centerfold from 1976 wanted to be a centerfold today, she would have to lose 12 pounds of fat and gain 27 pounds of muscle,” Hampton said.
The more a person diets, the more they become fixated on their appearance. Nearly 97 percent of dieters gain all the weight back within five years and two-thirds gain the weight back within a year, Pomerantz said.
“No one’s talking about eating for health,” Pomerantz said. “We’re not learning about proper nutrition.”
Women are not the only ones who suffer from eating disorders. The percentage of men who suffer from eating disorders is increasing, Hampton said. There is more pressure in today’s society for men to have the “perfect body.”
A G.I. Joe from the 1960s is different from the G.I. Joe today that looks as if he is “bulked up on hormones and steroids,” Hampton said. The ideal body image of a lean stomach and large muscles is plastered all over the media.
Men who participate in sports such as wrestling are more at risk for an eating disorder because they have to “make weight” for matches, and in other sports appearance is important, Pomerantz said.
The obsession with weight in numbers, body image interpersonal problems, family problems and genetics can make what Pomerantz calls a “dangerous recipe.”
The three eating disorders that can be triggered by a combination of the “dangerous recipe” are bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa and binge eating disorder. Pomerantz and Hampton discussed how to recognize when a friend or loved one is suffering from an eating disorder.
Hampton and Pomerantz addressed the serious warning signs that people should look for if they suspect a friend has an eating disorder. If a person is suffering from bulimia a major sign to look for is evidence of binge eating and purging behaviors after meals (trips to the bathroom).
A sign that a friend could be suffering from anorexia, which affects females nine times as often as males, is significant weight loss and the constant preoccupation with calories, food and dieting. Binge eating disorder is recognizable when a person has frequent episodes where he or she consumes a large quantity of food in a short period of time. Five to 10 percent of people who suffer from anorexia can die in 10 years from heart attack or suicide, Pomerantz said.
It’s OK to approach a person about their eating disorder as long as you are cautious. According to Hampton, it is important to use “I” statements such as “I’m concerned” or “I’ve noticed,” and to avoid the topic of food or weight, talk to them in private and don’t judge.
It’s best to come off as caring and assure them that they are not alone, Hampton said. If they don’t want to talk, don’t take it personally because it is can be a shameful or embarrassing topic for them to talk about with other people, Hampton said.
Melanie Whitley is an 8th-semester dietetics major who has been interning for Student Health Services for the past month. Whitley recommends students with an eating disorder consult counseling and mental health services as well as nutrition services.
“This gets them beyond the thoughts in their head, and teaches them to counter and overcome those feelings,” Whitley said.
UConn offers many eating disorder resources on campus and Pomerantz and Hamptonrecommended them to anyone who is suffering from an eating disorder or anyone who wants to refer or help a friend.
For more information visit Counseling and Mental Health (CMHS) services at www.counseling.uconn.edu,
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