Health Week: Battling an Eating Disorder

Considering it is health week at Northwestern University, it is important to talk about an issue that affects nearly 10 percent of college women: eating disorders. Last year, a new Renfrew Center opened in Chicago to help women who struggle with this psychological and physical burden. Just a year later, the center has already helped college student Hanna gain a healthy life.

During her sophomore year of college, Hanna realized that her eating disorder was getting out of hand. The summer after her freshman year, she began feeling restricted due to her job and her lack of meals. She started binging and purging to deal with her stress. She says it started off once a week, but then it became a daily activity. Hanna finally admitted to herself she was bulimic. When she returned to school in the fall, the pressure from her classes in addition to being around other students made her bulimia worse. Luckily, Hanna’s boyfriend at the time asked her to call her mom and tell her that she had a problem. Her mom then made her call a campus counselor which led to Hanna entering treatment for the first time.

For any person struggling with a disorder, it is hard to remain healthy after leaving a treatment center. When Hanna went home, her eating disorder flared up again, she says, and that is when she found Renfrew. For her first stint, she only took off a couple semesters. But, she decided that in order to get better she would take the entire year off from school to seek treatment from the Renfrew Center. “The one thing about treatment is that it’s very monotonous,” Hanna says. “You do the same thing everyday but there are different groups.” There are three options available at the center: residential care, day treatment, and an outpatient program. Hanna did the day program, which means she would drive to the center five days a week and stay from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. She would eat breakfast and lunch there, and then she would have a discussion about the meal. The activities change daily but some of the methods used to help the patients are art therapy, outreach through social media, and weekend planning which involves the girls talking about how they intend to stay healthy over the weekend. Hanna started at the center in Southern New Jersey, but transferred to the Chicago center when she knew she wanted to go back to school in September.

Hanna says that one of the best things about seeking treatment was the relationships she formed with the other girls, who she remains friends with because they all share the same experience. However, of course trying to overcome an illness is very difficult. Hanna received help from Renfrew for almost a year and a half. She considers the experience to be possibly the hardest thing she will ever do in her life. “You have to go there everyday and face your demons and talk about things you don’t want to talk about,” she says. Hanna emphasizes the experience was absolutely worth it despite miserable days when she would not want to talk to anyone and hated being there. Other days, she says, she loved the girls so much and did not want to leave. The center even helped her become closer with her family through family therapy.

Now that she is healthy and considered a Renfrew alum, Hanna speaks out about her personal experience. She studies advertising at her university. From her experience, she has learned that she wants to have a say about how women’s bodies are represented and marketed. “I want to see the world change, and I decided the way to do that is to go into an industry where women’s bodies are over-sexualized and women are not portrayed as real human beings,” she says.

Hanna was thankfully in a situation where she had friends and family who encouraged her to not be afraid and to admit she needed help. She wants other college students to know that they shouldn’t shy away from their fears either. “If you think you have an eating disorder, if you’ve thrown up once or twice or starved yourself for a few days, go talk to somebody,” she says. Struggling with food or thinking about dieting constantly can get out of control. Hanna wants every woman to reach out before it gets worse.

Visit the renfrewcenter.com if you think you have an eating disorder.

Last name not given to maintain privacy. 

**Images from renfrewcenter.com and google images

• awareness
• bulimia
• eating disorder
• health
• mental health