College can initiate, heighten eating disorders

Keri Seymour’s commanding confidence and outgoing nature
belies that only a short while ago she was recovering from a
near-deadly encounter with an eating disorder.

After taking several years off, this is her first semester back
in school at Pasadena City College, where she is a first-year
theater arts student .

Seymour is recovering from both anorexia nervosa, a condition
characterized by an abnormal fear of gaining weight and severe
weight loss, and bulimia nervosa, a condition where people vomit,
misuse laxatives, exercise excessively or fast to rid their body of
calories after eating.

Seymour has battled with her weight since she was 9 years old,
but her condition didn’t get severe until she entered
college, where she says she spent her entire first semester
studying, participating in theater, and starving herself.

“I think it was the stress of being out on my own and
having to be a responsible adult,” Seymour said. “I
developed this sense that I needed to be perfect, and I ended up
losing quite a lot of weight with this Nazi anorexia.”

Seymour was among the 10 percent of college students, most of
which are women, with a clinical eating disorder like anorexia
nervosa, bulimia nervosa or binge eating disorder.

Another 25-40 percent of undergraduate women reported disordered
eating behaviors, which include an unhealthy obsession with weight,
according to Karen Minero, a senior counselor at the Center for
Women and Men at UCLA.

According to Minero, 41.6 percent of students surveyed viewed
themselves as overweight, even though only 20.5 percent of them
actually were.

“Eating disorders are an epidemic,” said Joanna
Poppink, an eating disorder recovery specialist with a practice in
Los Angeles.

The causes for eating disorders differ from person to person.
While a negative body image can contribute to an eating disorder,
it is usually not the driving force behind it. Most people with
eating disorders use them as coping methods to deal with a
situation or problem in their lives, Poppink said.

Ironically, these people feel their eating disorders are helpful
in their time of need. They grow dependent on them, using them like
a drug to numb them from their real problems.

The experience of going away to college can often trigger an
eating disorder or make it more intense, according to Poppink, who
added that eating disorders are often scholastically crippling.

“A person with an eating disorder who graduates has done
it with her legs shackled, arms locked down, deaf in one ear and
with dim vision,” Poppink said.

Because people with eating disorders make food and exercise
their priorities, school often becomes a secondary consideration.
They can’t deal with stressful situations normally, so
something as routine as finals can trigger an episode.

“Finals week sucks for anybody but it totally sucks when
you have an eating disorder,” said Seymour, who believes she
has to constantly work on her recovery. “I’ve had to
call some of my other friends in recovery to tell them,
“˜I’m hurting. I want to starve, and I want to throw up
because of the stress.'”

Starving herself literally caused Seymour to start losing her
mind. Though her case is extreme, other students with eating
disorders, as well as disordered eating, admitted it had
debilitating effects on their academics, including difficulty
walking to class, an inability to concentrate in class, and
feelings of depression.

Like most addictions, eating disorders are harmful to the body
and are not easy to get rid of. People suffering from anorexia will
undergo massive bone loss and can develop osteoporosis ““ a
condition common in the elderly ““ in their teens. Women will
also typically stop menstruating.

Without treatment, up to 20 percent of people suffering from a
serious eating disorder will die, but that number drops down to 2-3
percent with treatment, according to the Anorexia Nervosa and
Related Eating Disorders, Inc. Web site.

But scare tactics alone don’t always deter people from
continuing their eating disorder.

Seymour had a deadly low blood pressure and was throwing up
blood, but still didn’t let go of her eating disorder. Or
rather, her eating disorder wouldn’t let go of her.

She couldn’t just start eating again, she says, because
she had become a prisoner to an anorexia that had taken over her
body and her entire being. It started to define her.

“There is this misery that comes with an eating disorder
that nobody that hasn’t had it can understand,” Seymour
said. “It is the most horrible, lonely feeling ““ that
feeling, that despair, is the worst thing I have ever
felt.”

One of the most important aspects of getting better is
developing more self respect. Most people don’t want to
recover because they don’t realize that they are worth the
recovery, Seymour said.

“That is my message to all those people who are suffering
““ that they are worth the recovery,” she continued.

The most important thing one can do for a friend with an eating
disorder, Poppink says, is to develop healthy eating habits. This
is partly because people have mirror neurons in their brains; when
they see someone doing something, they want to imitate it.

But it can be incredibly difficult to get well in a college
setting, where many students do not have healthy eating habits or
body images.

A lot of people who don’t have a disorder still suffer
from some sort of body image problem, said Brooke Mitchell, a
fitness director at the John Wooden Center and president of the
Health, Nutrition and Fitness Committee.

“We want to make a shift from caring about how you look on
the outside to how you feel on the inside,” Mitchell
said.

After getting better, people have to redefine themselves ““
a difficult task when their disorders have defined them for so
long.

But in the end, the freedom from restrictive exercise, harsh
diets and a harsher mind-set are well worth the struggle.

“I want people to know that there is a better way to live,
they don’t need to live like prisoners,” Seymour said.
“A year ago I couldn’t look at myself, but now, I look
in the mirror, and I love the person looking back at me.”

If you or someone you know suffers from an eating disorder,
contact Student Health Services at (310) 825-4073, or Joanna
Poppink at (310) 474-4165.