Eating Disorders: The first in a three part series on women's health
Fifteen percent of Dartmouth students suffer from eating disorders and 90 percent of these students are female, according to a 1991 survey by the College.
The survey asked students if they were suffering from bulimia, anorexia, bulimarexia or compulsive overeating.
But Marcia Herrin, coordinator of the College Nutrition Education Program, said she thinks this statistic is very low.
"People often don't realize that they have eating disorders themselves," Herrin said on Sunday.
Although for many women eating disorders begin before coming to Dartmouth, some fear that existing pressures and attitudes could cause a relapse.
Barclay Stone '97 suffered from anorexia in high school. "I felt a lot of pressure from peers. You think that if you are that thin, everyone will love you," Stone said.
Stone said being at Dartmouth has made her afraid she might develop anorexia again.
"I'm scared that being here-it rubs off on you, people's attitudes and everyone works out all the time," she said.
Stone said she was willing to reveal her name, because she said she feels strongly about the matter and comfortable enough to talk about it. "It really doesn't bother me," she said.
S.M., a female student said she has developed bulimia since coming to Dartmouth as a means for dealing with stress or depression.
Other women said they felt societal and peer pressures contributed to their perceptions of their bodies.
"I did not think about my weight until I met a girl in eighth grade and she had lost a lot of weight and she taught me about fat grams," Jessica Roberts '97, who was anorexic, said.
But Roberts said her understanding of the fat content of her food became an obsession. She no longer saw a food item, but a number that represented the grams of fat in the item.
K.C., a female '96 said her friends with eating disorders were very attractive and they felt they had to be "thin" in order to live up to the standards put on them but society.
K.C. said her friends' eating disorders were "a self image problem where both friends see themselves as being larger than they are."
"Guys won't like them if they aren't thin-that's their concept. Their self-image is highly based on what guys are thinking of them," she said.
The pervasiveness of this opinion is displayed in "The Beautiful People Die Twice," a play by Chance Whitmire '94, in which the "beautiful people" feel so pressured to remain "beautiful" that they develop eating disorders to preserve their bodies.
Roberts said she thought men at Dartmouth have unrealistic expectations of what women should weigh.
""I think part of the problem is that guys here have numbers in their heads that are unrealistic," Roberts said. "These guys look at pictures of supermodels and those bodies aren't real."
Jennifer Tudder "97 said her friend became anorexic "because of insecurities with relationships. She was interested in a guy and she said if he didn't call, she wouldn't eat."
Tudder's friend was 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed 100 pounds.
Tudder said her friend got cold very easily and fell into deep sleep suddenly.
Some men feel these worries are valid.
"Society forces women to look a certain way and act a certain way and if she doesn't look that way, they're discriminated against," a '96 male said.
"A lot of it was what I thought people thought of me," said J.J., a female student.
Parental influences or familial problems seem to be significant contributors to eating disorders.
"I learned from my mom to use food to deal with my problems. I ate when I was upset," said one female '95. "To me, that's how women spend their lives. Females always have to diet."
"Then, I started to realize that my dad was an alcoholic and my eating was similar to his problem," she said.
J.R., a '97 female said she grew up in a strict home where her father was a body builder.
"I was depressed that I wasn't like the rest of my family and I would always wish to be like my family," J.R. said.
Another '97 woman, who was born and raised in an Asian country until sophomore year in high school, said she developed anorexia when "my family, friends and family friends made comments about my weight."
She said these people told her if she ate after 3 p.m., "the fat would stick to her."
Herrin said the most obvious sign of an eating disorder is significant weight loss, but there are other more subtle signs.
"Anorexia is trickier [to notice] because when you think of an anorexic, you think of this Karen Carpenter type who looks like a skeleton and you never see yourself looking like that," Laura Mannix '97 said. "At the time all that was happening, I thought I looked okay. It sort of bothered me that my hair was falling out and all, but the fact that I could fit into a size three made me feel good."
The main forms of eating disorders are anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia is defined as "a loss of 15 percent of body weight, an obsession with thinness, a restricted diet and not menstruating for three months," Herrin said.
Herrin said bulimia is "the same obsession with body size, but the difference is the presence of bingeing and compensating for the binge."
Women compensate for the binge by starvation, purging, or excessive exercise, Herrin said.
Herrin also described a condition called bulimarexia, the most prevalent eating disorder, in which the person barely eats and then purges.
Of those diagnosed with eating disorders at the College, 80 percent have bulimia and 20 percent have anorexia, Herrin said.
The way women approach food at Dartmouth shows an obsession with not eating, said Stone, who works at Home Plate.
"I'll see women at the gym and they'll run for an hour and get a salad for dinner and be like 'Oh I'm getting dressing on my salad. I'm being such a rebel today,'" she said.
Many women emphasize that eating disorders are cyclical and even after they have sought therapy or other measures to change their behavior, there are periods of reversion.
"Even now, I'll have bad days but even those get better. A bad day used to be one where I fasted for a day, but now it's when I look in the mirror and think I'm fat," another '95 female said.
She said eating disorders are higher among athletes than non-athletes. "We're currently doing a lot of work with coaches and trainers."
Roberts said rowing at Dartmouth has helped her keep realistic expectations of her body weight.
"One of the things I loved so much about coming here and rowing here is that I have a coach who makes it okay to weigh what I do," she said.
"There's a lot more to life than a great body," Roberts said.
Herrin said the number of students suffering from eating disorders at the College is comparable to those at other colleges.
"These results are similar to the results of other college campuses," Herrin said.
Surveys have shown that two million Americans suffer from eating disorders. Two to 5 percent of Americans have anorexia and five to 30 percent have bulimia, Herrin said.
