Content warning: This article contains discussion of eating disorders and dieting that some readers may find distressing.
Resources:
Contact the National Eating Disorder helpline
Information sheet: eating disorders on college campuses
Links to online ED support groups
This week is Eating Disorders Awareness Week. The Empire State Building will don blue and green lights in honor of the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), and hopefully, a lot of people will remember that eating disorders exist. NEDA is “the largest non-profit organization dedicated to supporting individuals and families affected by eating disorders.” This year, the annual campaign is looking a little different, and NEDA is joining a coalition of other organizations to hold space for all those affected by eating disorders from February 27 through March 5.
You may have heard of NEDA through their screening tool, or through one of the many annual fundraising walks they host all across the country. NEDA also provides numerous educational resources for learning about eating disorders: from infographics people love to repost on their Instagram stories to brochures you’ve probably seen in waiting rooms of medical offices. But some of us didn’t learn about eating disorders through brochures; we know them like old friends.
At Smith, we live among a demographic of people who are highly susceptible to eating disorders. In order to embody Smith’s “Culture of Care,” (a phrase that has been at the vanguard of the College’s COVID-19 response) it’s important to be aware that there are students in varying stages of recovery on our campus.
Recovery is a broad term; it can be applied to everything from knee surgery to workout regimens. In the context of eating disorders, it retains its ambiguity and means different things to different people. For some, it could mean weight restoration through meal plans and nutritional supplements. For others, it may look like abstaining from or reducing the frequency of disordered behaviors and replacing them with healthy coping mechanisms and self-soothing. Recovery takes on many different forms, and there is no “right” way to do it, but for all, recovery is a love letter to the self; it is an enduring reminder that we are worth more than a life half-lived. On a day-to-day basis, however, it’s grueling, terrifying and often the victories can feel few and far between.
For any college student in recovery from an eating disorder, dining is going to be a point of concern. Unlike many other colleges that have centralized dining, at Smith, we are lucky enough to have a variety of options available all across campus. While this is an attractive feature for many, for others, particularly those who have experienced disordered eating, it can represent an overwhelming array of choices that often feels paralyzing. There is an underlying narrative of diet culture that characterizes different foods, lifestyles and choices as “good” or “bad.” This moralization of food is inescapable, regardless of whether or not we’re aware of its presence. With a variety of dining options on different parts of campus, this harmful narrative can begin to sink in when making decisions about where to eat.
This inherent decision anxiety can’t exactly be remedied given the way Smith’s campus is set up, but we can change the language we use around food. If it were in my power to outlaw the term “cheat meal,” I would. The term implies the existence of rules around food, and it seems counterintuitive to police a basic, life-sustaining activity. While a term like this may seem trivial to many, hearing it over and over again reinforces a disordered view around eating. We’re college students and have plenty to worry about already; we don’t need to be worrying about the caloric and nutritional content of our meals.
Trying to recover from an eating disorder in a college environment can also be incredibly lonely, and a lot of these feelings of isolation stem from the fact that our peers just don’t “get it.” The very act of walking into a crowded dining hall can be daunting. While eating in social settings can be a good way to get your mind off of food, it also provokes anxiety. When you’re loading more food onto your plate than your peers around you, it’s hard not to get self-conscious and feel a sense of silent judgment. Being aware of these dynamics is one thing; action is another.
Our collective awareness of eating disorders should extend beyond this week. Sharing an understanding of eating disorders supports a culture of support, compassion and respect in which we hold space for all those affected by mental health struggles. Understanding eating disorders also means investing in prevention on an interpersonal level; sometimes an offhand remark about someone’s plate can spark the decision to try out a diet, and dieting has been linked to the development of pathological eating disorders. While this provides a highly simplified picture of how eating disorders develop, it’s important to be aware of how our words may be harming those around us. Diet culture language is so normalized in our society, and yet everyone knows somebody who’s been affected by an eating disorder.
Unfortunately, recovery isn’t widely accessible to all. Socioeconomic factors limit access to diagnosis and treatment, the latter of which is often a vital step in one’s recovery process. People of color are “half as likely to be diagnosed or to receive treatment” as white people, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders. Despite the dire need for greater accessibility to care for marginalized groups, the narrative around eating disorders and recovery remains centered around white, thin, cisgender women. As we work to create safe spaces for those struggling with disordered eating, we must ensure that these spaces are inclusive and welcoming to all.
There are countless “awareness” weeks, days, months for various other mental and physical health conditions. Most people don’t spend too much time thinking about them unless it’s for something they’re personally affected by; it’s an unfortunate — and understandable — symptom of our tendency to focus on ourselves. So why should we care about eating disorders?
There are a multitude of answers to this question, and it’s one I would invite readers to ponder further. There are dozens of statistics I could cite to bore and depress you, but perhaps it’s no more complicated than the fact that no one should have to suffer from the insidious diseases that are eating disorders. We live on a campus where eating disorders are rampant; let’s take a moment to reflect on how we can work towards supporting one another.
