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Alumna shares experience with college eating disorder |
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Tuesday, 08 April 2008 |
by NIKKI ROBERTI
Intern Lifestyles Reporter
Looking into a mirror her freshman year, Appalachian State University 2007 alumna Heather Reaves said she would compare herself to another girl standing next to her and wish she could be “that thin.”
However, she was that thin and just couldn’t see it.
Reaves struggled with anorexia and a distorted perception of herself in her early college career.
 Photo Illustration by Jameykay Young
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“I
really thought I was fat,” Reaves said. “I probably started that year
at 130 pounds. I literally would look at myself in the mirror next to
someone the same height and weight as me, and thought that they looked
so much thinner than I did.”
In two and a half months, Reaves dropped 15 to 20 pounds as a result of
eating half of a veggie wrap from Wrapps in Welborn Cafeteria for the
entire day and exercising up to three hours a day in the gym.
Reaves wasn’t alone.
According to NationalEatingDisorders.org, over half of teenage girls use weight loss methods such as skipping meals.
Ninety-one percent of recently surveyed college campus women revealed
they had attempted to control their weight through dieting, and of that
91 percent, 22 percent said they dieted “often” or “always.”
“It got progressively worse,” Reaves said. “I would start with not
eating breakfast. Then I would have something for lunch. But then I
just kept cutting back and back.”
Staff psychologist at Counseling and Psychological Services Dr. Denise
M. Lovin said students are more vulnerable to develop emotional
disorders, such as those involved with eating, during their freshman
year.
“I think it’s the given stressful nature of making that transition from
high school to college for students in general,” Lovin said. “And for
women, managing stress through food is unfortunately a common behavior.”
Reaves said her freshman year was a difficult period for her.
She said she felt like her life had lost control due to the pressures
she felt from class, joining a sorority and roommate issues.
Looking at the other girls in the sorority, Reaves said she felt added pressure and personally changed a lot that year.
“It was a really hard time in my life,” she said. “I think I felt like
I didn’t have any control over what I was doing or thinking… and I
didn’t really know who I was or comfortable with myself.”
On college campuses in general, one in four women suffer from a form of disordered eating, Lovin said.
According to the Web site, anorexia is one of the most common
psychiatric diagnoses in young women, and between 5 and 20 percent of
victims will die as a result.
“Of all the mental illnesses, eating disorders is the one most people die of,” Lovin said.
Reaves said it was her sister who made her realize the possibility of death if she continued on that path.
Coming home for Thanksgiving her freshman year, only her sister noticed the warning signs as a potential health threat.
“My sister took me aside and was like, ‘What are you doing to yourself?
You’re going to die if you don’t stop now,’” Reaves said. “It was her
saying that to me that really snapped me out of it.”
Though she said it took her a while to fully realize how bad her
condition was, Reaves eventually overcame anorexia with her sister’s
support.
Reaves said it’s very important to have the emotional support from
someone you trust and, above all else, to be honest with yourself.
“The best thing [for someone struggling with an eating disorder] is to
realize that they don’t yet have the tools to recover,” Lovin said.
“People have a hard time appreciating that it’s okay to ask for help
and giving themselves the opportunity to do that. My hope is that
people struggling with eating disorders can reach out to the sorts of
people that are knowledgeable in that field.”
Appalachian offers on-campus assistance programs such as the Eating
Disorder Treatment Team, which incorporates a psychologist from the
counseling center, a dietician from the Wellness Center and a physician
from Student Health Services.
Although Reaves did not seek treatment at the time of her anorexia, she
did later use the counseling services for other personal issues she
said most likely contributed to her disorder.
She said she should have sought out treatment from the university, but at the time, didn’t think she needed it.
“I was in psychology courses at the time studying anorexia and did not
recognize it myself,” Reaves said. “It’s such a powerful disease. You
just don’t realize what you’re doing to yourself.”
Students who are unsure as to whether or not they have an eating
disorder are encouraged to take the anonymous online screening test at
counseling.appstate.edu, Lovin said.
“I still struggle with it,” Reaves said. “And I know it’s not as bad as
it could be, and I know it’s not as bad as other women who deal with
it, but every day it’s a struggle.”
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