Students presented personal stories of self-starvation, binge eating and the emotions that eating disorders perpetuate on Tuesday night in Collis Common Ground. The event, "Hear our Voices," was hosted by Eating Disorders Peer Advisors and Dartmouth College Health Services and featured students' poem and prose accounts of struggles with eating disorders.
Kari Jo Grant, EDPA advisor and coordinator of health education programs, said in an interview with The Dartmouth that the event was organized to provide a forum for students to share a "deep part of their world" and to give others a perspective on struggling with an eating disorder.
Lauren '11 one of the student presenters, whose last or full names were withheld due to the sensitive nature of the subject wrote a piece about her and a close friend's struggle with anorexia. She prefaced her work by speaking about what "girls are supposed to look like." She went on to describe how she and her friend, who died from the disorder, drew stick figures, anticipating the time when they would lose "just a few more pounds."
Some students discussed equating skinniness with perfection and drawing excitement from looking "minimalistic and sacrificial," as one student said.
Several works mentioned the recovery process and aftermath of eating disorders.
"I've spent the seven years since my eating disorder trying to justify the experience for myself, trying to legitimize it in some way," Katie '12 read in what she called the "overview of her journey," adding that one of the hardest parts of her recovery was seeing others suffer from eating disorders of their own.
In an anonymous submission, a student described her recovery as gradually "breaking the rules" that her disorder defined for her. Some of these rules are "sneaky" and subconscious, she said, but she broke her most important rule by telling people of her disorder at the event.
EDPA intern Alanna Kaplan '11 said in an interview with The Dartmouth that this event differed from most other EDPA events in that it allowed students to divulge personal rather than only factual information.
"Most events that we hold provide information for people struggling, or those who know someone struggling, with an eating disorder, but here we have Dartmouth students sharing their personal stories," Kaplan said.
EDPA provided publications that included information about ways to help friends through their disorders and the right ways to encourage them to seek help.
"This is an important event to raise awareness of eating disorders and show that we have a community of support for those who are struggling or have struggled," Kaplan said.
The importance of raising awareness and being sensitive to others' issues with eating disorders was reinforced in many of the pieces that described sentiments of loneliness and confusion.
Katie, who was diagnosed with anorexia at the age of 12, said that she had not yet been informed about eating disorders when she started her struggle and those close to her had not been concerned with the possibility of her being susceptible to one.
"Sometimes you can see it immediately. Sometimes it's the people you think it is," Katie read. "But, other times, it's the people who you would least expect, the people who are too young', the people who try so hard to deny something because it's all they can manage to think about."
