Body Image a Problem on Campus

Mike Kraft remembers going to the gym three times in one day, running eight miles each time he went. The twenty four miles he ran that day was an extreme, but the average he ran in a day was still high – fifteen miles.
 
Kraft, a junior journalism major at Oswego State, was diagnosed with anorexia after dealing with body image issues since his freshman year in high school.
 
“I was way too picky about foods and exercising all the time,” he says.
 
His first year at Oswego was cut short when he went home in April and was immediately admitted to the hospital for inpatient care for his eating disorder. His vital signs showed a slower heartbeat and a very low temperature – signs that something needed to change.
 
Jane LeBlanc, a counselor at the Counseling Services Center at Oswego State, says eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, binge eating and over-exercising are extremely common at Oswego.
 
“Two in five people I see here, just in my office, would say they have low self-esteem,” she says, a common cause for eating disorders. One in seven people she sees has either a past or present eating disorder.
 
“I do think there’s a problem,” LeBlanc says. However, she added that Oswego is not equipped to deal with problems of this magnitude.
 
“The thing that’s difficult about treating eating disorders on campus is that they’re so dangerous physically,” she says. Many students who are identified as bulimic or anorexic are sent to hospitals either in Syracuse or in their hometowns for treatment. 
 
There are also no support groups for students with eating disorders on campus. Michelle Sloan, the health promotion coordinator at Oswego State says she is unsure whether a program to help these students will be implemented on campus in the future.
 
“A need would have to be established,” she says, “Then, it would have to be utilized for it to remain supported.” She added that it could be a possibility, but it’s hard to predict that right now.
 
LeBlanc notes that not many of the students suffering from eating disorders want to get help. “It’s so difficult to admit that you need help,” he says.

Kraft agrees with this notion, admitting that he tried to hide his anorexia for a long time before he finally received help. Even his doctors, however, did not see a problem at first.
“They said, ‘He’ll grow out of it,’ but it just gets worse and worse,” he says. “You don’t even enjoy waking up because you’re just a slave to it.”
 
LeBlanc adds that the need to be thin becomes such an obsession that the student can no longer control it.
 
“The need to lose weight is so compulsive and body image is so skewed, they’ll see fat where we see bones,” she says. 
 
Both LeBlanc and Kraft say they would like to see more attention given to these disorders.
 
“Like any other mental disorder, there’s a stigma,” Leblanc says. “People do not always want to talk about it because it is seen as almost taboo.
 
In fact, according to the National Eating Disorders Association, eating disorders are more common than Alzheimer’s disease, yet they get less than 25 percent of research funding.
 
Active Minds, a student-run organization on campus, tried to bring more attention to these issues by hosting numerous events during National Eating Disorder Awareness (NEDA) week, which took place from from Feb. 20-26.  LeBlanc says the week was meant to show students that they are not alone and that they can get help. 
 
JoHanna Molascon, the president of Active Minds at Oswego, says that the media is also a big factor contributing to the eating disorders of many students.
 
“I also believe when you make a whole bunch of people live together that are mostly the same age, the pressure gets a lot worse,” she says.
 
To counteract that pressure, Molascon says Active Minds tries to show students that it is okay to be who you are and that you do not need to lose weight to be beautiful. The organization handed out pamphlets and bookmarks with information about eating disorders outside the dining halls during NEDA, and also handed out “positive affirmation boxes.” The handmade boxes were filled with uplifting sayings such as “you are beautiful,” which were meant to raise self-esteem. The organization also stuck Post-It notes on bathroom mirrors and in hallways across campus with similar uplifting messages, following a nationwide trend called Operation Beautiful.

 
“Everyone’s body is different,” says Molascon. “People have to find what looks and feels good for them. Forget what the media is saying to us.”
 
Kraft adds that even after overcoming an eating disorder, it never fully goes away. It will always be a struggle.
 
“The goal is just to have more good days than bad days,” he says. “Just keep moving forward.”