I'm not sure if I have mentioned this before, but I go to a private women's college. The curriculum is fast-paced, in-depth, and challenging. Social life is full of pettiness, disloyalty, and back-stabbing. Pressure is there to not only succeed in academics, have a full social life, work (if your parents aren't rich enough to provide you with spending money), but to look damn good while you're doing it, too. Whenever I go to the gym (and it's a tiny gym) there are tons of people in there. Of course, I don't know their individual reasons for working out, so who am I to judge? I wouldn't say that there is a huge emphasis on working out in order to look good or be skinny; the emphasis is more on being healthy. For instance, the school has started a Scottie Fit program (our mascot) in which participants can buy a pass, $5 each class, and do things like aerobics, swimming, and cultural dances in order to get fit. However, this is coming from a school that is low on healthy food options, posts the caloric content of the food in the dining hall (this is what enrages me the most), has inconsistant portion sizes, and has little in the way of awareness about eating disorders and healthy eating. Yes, this week is Love Your Body week and National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, and we annually have a "Be Comfortable in Your Genes!" jeans drive for womens' shelters and a Candlelight Vigil to honor those who have passed and who are struggling with an eating disorder, but this week is, to my knowledge, when the majority of positive body talk and eating disorder awareness goes on on my campus. A campus filled with women. Women who are challenged to perform on a higher emotional, intellectual, and mental level than most of their non-private women's college attending peers. These stressors lead to higher rates of depression and anxiety, which in many cases, I'm afraid, could lead to eating disorders or the relapse of an eating disordered individual. While this hasn't been studied, I know from what I've observed that it definitely leads to the abuse of alcohol, drugs like Adderal and Rittalin, and risky behaviors. I've also had multiple people reveal to me that they are suffering from eating disorders or disordered eating behaviors, and it worries me.
What is my college doing wrong? They are hardly doing anything. Yes, you can seek personal counseling or a referral to a therapy from our Wellness Center. Yes, they have the ability to monitor the health and weight of those with eating disorders in tandem with an off-campus treatment team. But do they hold support groups? No. Do they even advertise groups held in the community? Only if those groups in the community reach out to the school, not the other way around. Is there any open dialogue surrounding eating disorders, healthy body image, and resources for help? Not really. Only during Love Your Body week are these types of problems addressed. And while I can't speak for the whole college or those in attendance here, I do not see these things being provided.
And my biggest question is: Why?
What do you think would help our college community? What have your schools done? What would you like to see implemented?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
We have a collegiate recovery center on campus and until I got there, there wasn't any support groups for eating disorders. We too did the Love your genes week and I went to it and shared a little bit of my recovery, got the name and number of the director of the CRC and pursued starting an ANAD group on the campus in the CRC. We started it a year ago and though not many people come all of the counselors on campus have referred students to it. Don't be a follower, be a leader. Start your own group and become an advocate.
ReplyDeleteKat
I think the problem is that people don't see " the problem" until you are in the hospital or close to it. It is considered normal behavior for female-bodied and/or female-identified people.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about other people, but for me it would help if we had more discussions on campus about what kind of bodies are valued and why. It would be really nice to debunk the whole "some bodies are better than others" idea.
I mean, I am far from perfect on any of this. I do self-destructive stuff to make my body more acceptable all the time. I just think the discussion is going in the wrong direction. A large part of health is your mental sanity and Agnes and Western civilization are not addressing that issue at all.
Tia