Do you ever count calories? How about counting the calories you burn on the elliptical? Compulsive dieting, excessive exercise and poor body image may feel like just a darker side of the college experience for many U.Va. students, but behaviors like these often lead to diagnosable eating disorders.
According to a 2007 National College Health Assessment Report, 60 percent of college women have disordered eating.
The University Women's Center and the U.Va. Coalition on Eating Disorders and Exercise Concerns are co-sponsoring the Perfect Illusions vigil tonight at 7 p.m. in the Newcomb Hall Kaleidoscope Room. This event provides a non-threatening forum for those who have been touched by eating disorders to share their stories. Melanie Brede, nutritionist at the Department of Student Health Office of Health Promotion, said the event has been running for about five years.
"It was started by a student intern who was passionate about creating a space for dialogue about eating disorders," she said. The program is an open mic which features new stories each year, and many students gain the confidence to stand up and tell their stories after attending Perfect Illusions in previous years, she said. The event is open to the community and publicized to local therapists and clinicians who may pass the invitation on to their patients.
Amy Chestnutt, the Women's Center eating disorders education coordinator, said the event extends beyond those directly impacted by eating disorders. "We've had fathers, boyfriends, mothers, close friends - all those people speak," she said.
Chestnutt runs the Universiy's Eating Disorders Education Initiative (Body Positive Programming), which seeks to increase general eating disorder awareness and provide resources for those with eating disorders or disordered eating behaviors. Statistics show their initiatives are working. According to the Fall 2009 National College Health Assessment, 53.9 percent of University students responded yes to the question, "Have you received information on the following topics from your college or university - eating disorders?" Only 27.9 percent of the national reference group students answered yes.
"U.Va. is clearly ahead of a lot of other college communities," said Charlotte Chapman, director of counseling services at the Women's Center. She noted that the Women's Center, which is U.Va.'s only office dedicated exclusively to eating disorders and their ramifications, is entirely funded by alumni gifts, with current funds set to run out in fall of 2012.
Whereas the Women's Center is an office which provides counseling, information, guidance and body-positive programming, the U.Va. Coalition on Eating Disorders and Exercise Concerns is a collaborative group of students, staff and faculty who work together to promote eating disorder prevention and education. The organization works in conjunction with the student group Hoos Open to Preventing Eating Disorders, or H.O.P.E.
Brede said the coalition and H.O.P.E. are the "hands and feet" which make Women's Center events happen. She added that the involvement of H.O.P.E., a contracted independent organization, is especially effective because it allows students to market events to other students. Currently, these organizations are promoting both Perfect Illusions and the National Eating Disorders Association walk, which will be held on Nov. 5.
Chestnutt said the meaningful connection between students and faculty makes the University's program especially effective. "A lot of [schools] don't have coalitions," she said. "They don't have partnerships between students and faculty that are strong, and ours are really strong."
While the Univerity's diverse, dynamic eating disorders programming has proven effective on the home front, it also is impacting national programs. Chestnutt recently presented the Women's Center's work in eating disorder prevention to the National Eating Disorders Association national conference as a model for other programs, and the Eating Disorders Education Initiative is working on a poster for the Renfrew Conference, an eating disorders conference in Philadelphia.
Much of the Women's Center's work focuses on addressing the root causes of disordered eating. "It's really pervasive here," Chestnutt said. "Not eating disorders, necessarily, but body image issues and feeling challenged ... by dieting and eating."
Chestnutt said family history and genetics also play a substantial role in the development of eating disorders but that another source of these problems is unrealistic cultural ideals.
"I think, overall, that culturally that's something we are creating with advertising and the media," she said, adding that many students are under stress because they feel they "don't meet an ideal that is not real."
In collaboration with Residence Life, the Women's Center uses the national program Reflections to help first-year women develop and maintain a positive body image and reduce stress about measuring up to imagined ideals.
Chestnutt said the University's eating disorder programming focuses on the well-being of the entire individual. "Weight is just one number," she said. "We're looking at health as a goal"
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