Alright friends, I’ve held off talking about it for long enough. Eating disorders. Intimidating words, right? Those five syllables carry a lot of weight. A lot of stereotypes. A lot of conversation, usually held in whispers and controversies behind the backs of those suffering. Not a lot of confrontation, which has led to the painfully awkward amount of negative stigma surrounding it. And I shouldn’t refer to eating disorders as “it”, but rather “them”. There are a LOT of them, in fact, tons; it’s not just the anorexia and bulimia that people (myself included) tend to point fingers at. This website lists off six, each with multiple subcategories, to name a few.
And it’s not always the oh-my-goodness-eat-a-donut-skinny people coping with them. It might be the guy you see at the caf all the time, or your professor who’s always on-the-go, or the girl who seems to be proud of her curves. Eating disorders have no partiality to gender, ethnicity, age, religion, sexuality, etc.; over 30 million different people in the U.S. suffer from it.
I’m a nutrition major, and I can 100% tell you that I don’t know about eating disorders as much as people assume I should. They’re extremely complex and go way beyond what tv characters and magazine photos have led us to believe.
So… I’m reading this article for you to tell me you don’t know anything?
No. I mean, technically yes, but no. I’m trying to publicize that we need to STOP making assumptions about eating disorders! If you have a friend with an eating disorder (chances are that you do, since 20% of college students admit they have or have had an eating disorder), it’s probably not the person you’d suspect.
Assuming someone has an eating disorder and making a point to bring it up is the last thing that needs to be done; that can do way more harm than good, especially if you guessed wrong. But, if someone comes to you and admits they have a problem, give them resources.
We are extremely lucky to be in a city full of help; here are just a few places:
-The Counseling Center in Student Health Services
Let’s talk about it – the more we talk, the less stigmatized it is, the more people can be healed.