Baker students and faculty members have learned the path to perfection isn’t one’s physical appearance but the heart and strength of mind to overcome the idea that it is.
Tough Topics part 2: Sadness afflicts students<a href="http://media.www.thebakerorange.com/media/storage/paper1028/news/2008/05/02/News/Sadness.Afflicts.Students-3360907.shtml"> Tough Topics part 2: Sadness afflicts students</a> Tough Topics part 2: Sadness afflicts students
“I know how many calories is in everything I put in my mouth. I still add it up in my head; I still worry about it; I still think about numbers on the scale,” sophomore Christa Roach said. “The only difference now is I eat and keep it down and just deal with it.”
As of Wednesday four years ago, Roach said she started dieting as a high school student who had issues with body image since she was a child. However, dieting followed her to Baker her freshman year in the fall of 2005 and grew into a disease that kept her from Baker for the 2006-2007 academic year.
“I didn’t know at first. It took until I was about 75 pounds before I realized it was a problem, and my parents stepped in and put me into an eating disorder treatment center,” she said.
After concluding her freshman year in May 2006 and returning home for the summer, Roach went into treatment for anorexia nervosa for five or six months at a facility in Denver, Co. She said it was a wake-up call.
“I learned a lot about the disorder in general,” she said. “It was a turning point. You had no choice; you lost all your control.”
Alumna Haley Gilbert, who graduated in December 2007, has also been to in-patient care and suffered from issues with body image since she was around eight years old. Gilbert said her thoughts progressed into an eating disorder, and she was diagnosed with anorexia around 14 or 15 years old.
However, her disease grew worse before it got better.
“I didn’t want to get better at that time at all,” she said. “I was really angry, and I felt like my eating disorder wasn’t mine anymore. I felt like other people were trying to take control of something that was very important to me and that I wasn’t ready get rid of.”
Baker Counseling Center Director Kelly Bowers said anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder are three prevalent eating disorders in society diagnosed as mental disorders, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Bowers said people suffering from anorexia generally don’t consume enough calories, which can lead to major organs shutting down. Purging or bulimia upsets gastrointestinal systems and damages teeth from constant acid exposure. Those with dysmorphic disorders generally see themselves or parts of their body as exaggerated in the mirror.
“You see it differently than other people see it – you probably see it worse than other people see it,” Bowers said.
A Baker faculty member, who wanted to remain anonymous, was diagnosed with body dysmorphic disorder as a college student after having a dance teacher reiterate the importance of being thin and having the desire to remain in shape upon entering graduate school.
“I was working out really hard and not putting any calories in, and I loved the way that I looked; and I was probably burning three times more calories than I was ingesting,” the faculty member said. However, after reaching 90 pounds from simply not eating and over-exercising, family intervened to help.
“In my life now, I’m pretty healthy, although I have moments of relapse, but I go and talk to somebody about where I’m at.”
Bowers said environmental factors or people coping with traumatic events or stress and anxiety by restricting their eating sometimes causes eating disorders.
“A lot of times it has to do with family dynamics and how their family functions as they grow up,” she said. “Eating is a way to control one’s life or feel like one has control.”
Bowers said in her seven years working with college-aged students, two of which have been at Baker, she finds that eating disorders, especially that of anorexia, are more prevalent among young women but has seen an increase among men in general wanting to bulk up.
“Body image issues now are centering around muscle mass and wanting to use things to help them build muscle,” she said. “They use the gym more – seems to be more common now than it was 10 years ago.”
Ed Bloch, a licensed clinical social worker and specialist at the The Life Enrichment Center located in Lawrence, said today’s society with 24-hour access to fast food and cultural expectations of the perfect body makes a potent atmosphere for anyone to form a negative body image.
He said this may account for why between 60 and 70 percent of the population in the United States suffers from binge eating.
“We have a very volatile situation that is culturally induced,” he said.
Roach returned to Baker in January and said thoughts of being a role model for her niece help her cope with her recovery each day.
“She looks up to me and really inspires me to keep trying,” Roach said. “I can’t imagine losing her or her losing me.”
Gilbert said she doesn’t see herself in the recovery stage yet, but she’s fighting harder now than ever before.
“Part of me feels like I’m going to fight this the rest of my life or it’s going to kill me – one of those two,” she said. “I don’t really see a lot of middle ground, but then another part of me, a more optimistic part of me, is trying to say there’s hope for me to get to a point where I might still have the thoughts but they would be bearable.”
Gilbert also said a common misconception many people have is that eating disorders don’t affect people who are overweight or at normal weights.
“You don’t have to be 70 pounds and on a feeding tube to have an eating disorder,” she said. “Some of the sickest I have known have been at weights where no one would guess they were sick just to see them walking down the street.”
Roach said people who are suffering or think they might have symptoms of an eating disorder shouldn’t be afraid to seek answers to questions.
“Don’t be afraid to ask for help because it’s seriously a life or death situation,” she said.