Eating disorders are some of the most common mental health disorders. They’re so easy to hide and go unnoticed, even in areas you would not find them to be.
In college, it’s normal to starve yourself, complain about how you’re not skinny, and not eat anything so you can get drunk faster. However, what many people do not realize, is that these are all disordered eating patterns and are much more common than one may think. Just a few days ago I was sitting in my friend’s room, and her roommate started saying how she doesn’t eat all day. And when her roommate’s friend asked how, she responded by saying coffee. And instead of her friend saying something like that’s not healthy, he looked at her and said wow, that’s smart.
As someone who has struggled with eating issues in the past, this interaction was a massive red flag to me. Now, it’s not my life, and I can’t tell her to stop drinking coffee all day to suppress her hunger, but I don’t think it should be supported. And this hasn’t been the only situation, I’ve been in so many situations where I’ve had friends say “I don’t want to eat today so I look like I’m thin” or “I don’t have time to eat”.
All of these are classic statements and phrases that people with eating disorders say, or may even begin eating disorders. However, with college students they are normal.
It’s just another way to express your feelings about food, and most people don’t even recognize the disordered eating thoughts within those statements.
It’s even normalized among most college students to eat less on a night out just to be able to get drunk faster. How, why, I couldn’t tell you, but it shouldn’t be normal. Fueling our bodies should.
Now, I’m not sure the exact reason for this- if people know about eating disorders, understand them, or maybe even have them and unintentionally spread them to others. But due to miseducation, these bad habits spread, and slowly take out more people.
Along with this, it can make people feel bad about themselves. How is someone supposed to feel when they hear that someone else didn’t eat all day to get skinny- because I would feel terrible about having that delicious pizza I had earlier in the day. And this is coming from someone who has struggled with these disorders, especially people that don’t struggle with them may get these ideas, and begin to feel these guilty thoughts, which is something I wouldn’t wish upon anyone.
There are so many stories of people having healthy relationships with their bodies and food until they get to college and get into this never-ending cycle, which changes everything.
I think there can be a few things done to combat this. First, people need to be more mindful of what they say, and how it can possibly affect others. Eating disorders are serious and should be taken as such.
Second, people should be educated on eating disorders. Colleges are forced to educate students about alcohol consumption, but why not eating habits? It’s students’ first time away from home, and a lot of them may not know how to sustain themselves in a good way. Colleges should educate students on good eating habits so that they don’t fall into bad habits, and continue to normalize these disorders.
Now, the biggest thing to help stop this vicious cycle would be to stop normalizing it. It should not be acceptable to praise people for not eating all day, for whatever reason. It should also not be acceptable to have this be the ideal, for getting drunk, getting skinny. People should learn to fuel their bodies before a night out or learn how to lose weight in a healthy way. This can be done with education, as well as the spread of what eating disorders are so that people can learn and recognize the signs.
In effect, due to everyone mentioning them constantly they are purely normalized. Which is the main problem. These should not be normalized- and anything and everything should be done in order to stop the spread of that.