This week is the 21st National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. This yearly event seeks to decrease the stigma around eating disorders while increasing early recognition of disorders. This is especially challenging given the limited public knowledge about the subtleties of eating disorders, much less the wide range of disordered eating patterns.
Did you know that bulimia is predominantly a college-age disorder, often occurs with depression and also affects men? So much for our high school classes leaving it at “Watch out for vomiting or laxatives.” Disordered eating can include eating large amounts of food without compensating for those calories. In addition, many people with disordered eating (especially bulimia) have normal body weights.
Despite the many resources on campus, including treatment, for people with eating disorders, how many of us actually know that disordered eating is correlated with substance abuse? We can better serve our community by increasing publicity about eating disorders so that we are all better equipped to watch out for the well-being of our friends, roommates and significant others.
This week, build your knowledge about eating disorders, watch out for your friends and show support for people struggling with every type of disordered eating.
Anne Prisor is a third-year anthropology and psychology student. She is a director of the Peer Support Network.