College stress can lead to eating disorders

Everyone knows (or has read about) someone who appears obsessed about food or their body.\nIn the United States, eating disorders affect 5 percent of young women and 1 percent of men, with college-aged women having significantly higher rates of dangerous eating attitudes and behaviors.\nWhat makes college students so vulnerable to developing eating disorders? The answer stems from a variety of factors specific to the college experience and the student's individual characteristics and histories. \nBeing in college is an exciting opportunity for personal growth and change, but it carries many sources of stress. This stress comes from demanding academic expectations, financial issues and "fitting in" to a new social arena. \nStudents may focus more heavily on appearance as a way to manage stress and ultimately buy into societal expectations that thinness equals success and desirability. The college experience also brings unlimited amounts of food in the dining halls and new independence with eating options and choices. \nFor some students, this can be very overwhelming, triggering fears of weight gain known as the "freshman 15." When these fears are coupled with stressors above, students may restrict their eating, exercise excessively or binge then purge to keep weight down. \nDisordered eating or excessive exercise is a misguided but conscious attempt for students to handle struggles with autonomy, separation from family and conflicting demands. \nFor some students, controlling weight is synonymous with controlling the external pressures. Others find relief from binging on food to numb the feelings of emptiness related to disconnection and new independence. \nCoupled with the environmental stressors, there are individual factors that increase the likelihood of developing an eating disorder or buying into the importance of thinness as a measure of success. One of those factors is a history of anxiety or depression. Other individual factors include students with characteristics of perfectionism, excessive need for approval, low self-esteem or all or nothing thinking.\nHelp is available on campus through the Counseling and Psychological Services. Located on the fourth floor of the IU Health Center, CaPS offers individual and group treatment of eating disorders. There are also private therapists and groups in the community as well as Bloomington Hospital for emergency situations. \nBeyond the professional services, students should be encouraged to talk openly with a trusted faculty member, coach, residential assistant, parent or friend to break the silence of their eating problem and begin recovery. \nThe college experience has so much more to offer once students are free of this debilitating preoccupation with food. \nThe end of February marks the National Eating Disorders Awareness week. IU's counseling department will be sponsoring their annual Eating Disorders Awareness Day on Thursday, Feb. 27 with a variety of outreach activities to bolster student awareness and encourage student screening for potential eating disorders. \nThe CaPS staff is joined by Health and Wellness and The Center for Human Growth to facilitate the outreach activities for this important event. Screening sites are from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Education Building and Business School/SPEA lobbies and from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the SRSC lobby.