We live in a culture that adores thin women. To be thin represents the ideal body image and in fact, is also often associated with success and confidence. The media worships thin beautiful women on the red carpet in Hollywood or in fashion magazines around the globe. For women this ideal image of beauty has been a long standing struggle.
The obsession with being thin has led to many disturbing eating disorders for women. In fact, a recent estimate of the lifetime prevalence of eating disorders is provided by the National Comorbidity Survey Replication, a face-to-face household survey of 9.282 individuals. According to this survey, 0.90% of women are suffering from Anorexia Nervosa, 1.5% from Bulimia, and 3.5% from Binge Eating Disorder. Altogether, about 9.18 million women have struggled with an eating disorder.
This battle with body image starts at an early age for females but is especially prevalent (or at least more often reported) in high school and college age females.
With this in mind, I looked for experts in this field to better understand this disorder among young women today. Eating for Life Alliance (ELA) is a non-profit organization that provides educational resources on the prevention and treatment of eating disorders to colleges and universities nationwide. I posed some questions about eating disorders in young women to ELA co-founders, Whitney Post and Dawn Hynes. I met Whitney last year at the Massachusetts Conference for Women and was immediately enamored with her passion and mission to help young women
1. How prevalent are issues of body image and eating disorders for young women today? The issue is quite pervasive; 91% of women recently surveyed on a college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting, 22% dieted often or always. Also, an estimated 64% of college women exhibit some degree of eating disorder behavior. And on college campuses, administrators report a 24.3% rise in reports of eating disorder concerns among their students.
2. Is diagnosis or identification of the problem an issue? Absolutely! Eating disorders are of the most secretive of mental health issues and often go untreated because of the lack of awareness, education, and resources available. Although there is a lot of hope for those struggling, and recovery is possible with the right interventions, support and effort, it can be a challenge to get some people to treatment. According to the Eating Disorders Coalition (whose mission is to advance the federal recognition of eating disorders as a public health priority), eating disorders can be successfully and fully treated to complete remission, but only 1 in 10 people with eating disorders receive treatment. And for those who do get help, only 35% do so at a specialized facility for eating disorders.
3. Why do you feel its more prevalent now? The big picture is that we live in a culture that sets up women, and increasingly men, for body dissatisfaction. Our culture promotes an impossible physical ideal, and then litters the media with advertisements and messages that having the perfect body will in some way solve all problems. Unfortunately, there are no advertisements for how to deal with challenging emotions that are the real issue. It is also often invisible — people can struggle for a long time and still perform in their daily lives, at school, etc., but be emotionally distressed and physically compromised at the same time. And for women in particular, although some may never struggle in earnest themselves, statistics reveal that they will know someone who does, so understanding this issue and knowing how to talk about it is invaluable.
4. What is ELA and why did you start this organization? The name Eating For Life Alliance was chosen purposely for its positive focus ideally we would all be eating and thinking about our bodies in a way that supports life, not its destruction. We are professionally and personally invested in bringing about a real and lasting change to eating and body image pathology. On a professional level, we have years of experience providing eating disorder treatment, consultation, and advocacy. Our personal investment comes from Whitneys history of an eating disorder that started in college; in the absence of proper recognition treatment, that disorder continued for almost two decades. Dawn worked as a volunteer for a suicide hotline, and saw that a huge percentage of those calling were local college students dealing with an eating disorder. These experiences resulted in ELAs leadership to commit to being part of the solution, by working to support college students with these issues.
5. What resources are available for young women? Excellent resources do exist there are more and more high quality treatment facilities and advocacy organizations, and an increasing number of clinicians are being specially trained in working with eating disorder and body image issues. In addition, there is more research being conducted on causes and effective treatment. That being said, these resources arent available in all communities.
6. How can people get involved in ELA or access help from your organization? Visiting the website is the best way to get information. The simplest way to support ELA is to join the alliance on our site – there is no cost, it takes under a minute and it helps support our mission. Additionally, people have volunteered their expertise and resources since the beginning of ELA. We are currently focusing on fundraising efforts, and looking for advisors with expertise in this area as we build our board. We are also eager to work with individuals who may be willing to host fundraisers of any size to benefit our organization.
Have you ever suffered from an eating disorder or poor body image or perhaps know of someone who struggles with this? If so, please get them the help they need to get healthy!
If you have a daughter, what steps do you take to instill confidence and self-esteem in her?
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