Eating Disorder Awareness Week at Kenyon

Eating disorders are crippling, and a lot closer to you than you might imagine.  You either have had one, know someone who has had one, or unknowingly know someone who has had one.  

Even if none of these cases apply, you are still a student at Kenyon College, where Eating Disorders Awareness Week (EDAW) was founded in 1983 by Dr. Tracy Schermer (college physician at Kenyon for many, many years), Professor of Psychology Michael Levine, and a number of members of the Mental Health Association of Knox County.

EDAW is now a “national and international phenomenon” says Professor Michael Levine, one of the founders.  EDAW is coming up this last week of February, but unfortunately exactly 30 years after its creation “in Ohio and in many states, eating disorders are, unlike depression and OCD, NOT legally recognized as ‘biologically-based mental illnesses’” says Levine. The goal of this week is to raise awareness and support. For a disease not recognized as a biologically-based mental illness, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. 95% of those who suffer are between the ages of 12 and 25, making this awareness more important now than ever on a college campus (www.state.sc.us).

One of this year’s Kenyon EDAW student organizers, Erin Ginsburg (‘15), reminds us that “We all don’t realize how prevalent disordered images of your body or negative thoughts about food are…If you just stop to think about what you say sometimes at meals about food it sounds awful, like why would you say that to yourself?”  It’s true that eating disorders are everywhere.  I anonymously interviewed Kenyon students who are suffering, or who have suffered, from eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified).  Their stories were disturbing and sad, but hopeful.  

Each eating disorder arose from a different reason: usually a simple, everyday activity became disordered.  One student ran on a team in high school, another forgot her lunch one day in fifth grade.  A third suffered from depression and another from food allergies.  There is no specific person or type that is targeted by eating disorders: these people could be your friend or your neighbor; they might be you.

One student who suffered from both anorexia and bulimia said “I felt a lot of things. Addicted. Unaware. Sad as fuck. These are the kinds of things which are both completely indescribable at the time and also totally indescribable when looking back”.  Another student who had anorexia starting in fifth grade, and had a heart attack at age 14 from malnutrition, described the disease vividly as “It’s like being on the wrong side of a frozen lake. You’re cold, and numb, and stuck watching the world beneath a sheet of ice. You can see the world–the people up above–and they can see you, but your interactions are limited. You see everything that isn’t under the ice with you through these carnival-esque glasses. The numbness is all that feels real, after a while. Recovery was like this: someone hacked through the ice and yanked me onto land. It was sudden, jarring, unexpected, and at the eleventh hour. I felt like I couldn’t breathe air anymore, like I didn’t speak the language of warmth. And in a way, I didn’t. Few things will confuse you as much as having to learn how to eat again. It’s like you have to learn how to be human.”  

Students sought recovery with family, friends, counselors, and nutritionists, but the overall consensus is that recovery is, as put by one student, “a constant uphill battle…but even at my worst now I am so much better than I was at the start”.  Another student encourages recovery with the words that “understanding you’re not ‘broken’, that you’re not alone, that’s really powerful”.  And that seems to be what Kenyon EDAW is all about: understanding you are not alone.
   
As for eating disorders at Kenyon, there are mixed feelings regarding the supportive atmosphere among the students who have suffered from eating disorders.  The recent creation of Peer Counselors, a student group that assists the counseling center, has helped greatly with “taking some of the burden from the Counseling Center” that has been overwhelmed in the past few years, according to Ginsburg.  Some students feel that the environment at Kenyon, in regards to eating disorders, is “positive” and “incredibly supportive”, but still express extreme thanks that they didn’t have to deal with the worst of their eating disorder during college.  Other students find the dialogue disappointing and feel that eating disorders have been “overlooked”.  Still, there is agreement that “things are improving”, especially with the upcoming Eating Disorders Awareness Week and everything that is planned.

Many events are scheduled during the upcoming week of awareness, and everyone is welcome.  The activities are “[geared towards] everyone. Certainly there’s a call for people who’ve had eating disorders to be more involved and facilitate things…but at the same time it really is about the awareness and helping everyone understand…we want to get people together to learn” says Ginsburg.  As one sufferer of EDNOS puts it, “Just knowing I’m not alone, that there are others who struggle like me, or succeed like I can do…That comfort is unparalleled”.

EDAW PROGRAMS:

Friday: “Killing Us Softly 4” movie in Olin at 7:00pm
Monday: Panel discussion in Weaver Cottage at 6:00 pm
Tuesday: Sports and nutrition talk in Rosse Hall at 11:10 am (common hour)
Tuesday: “How to Hug the Elephant in the Room”at 5:15 pm (location TBA, presenter is counselor Sarah Gill-Williams)
Wednesday: Keynote Speaker Jessica Setnick presents “You Are WHY You Eat” in Rosse Hall at 8pm — doors open at 7:30 pm
Thursday: Jessica Setnick Q&A/conversation in Peirce Lounge at 11:00 am