 "Photo: MARK M. GONG–THE DIAMONDBACK")
As the petite young woman knelt on the bathroom floor for more than three hours, holding her shoulder-length blond hair away from the toilet bowl and retching up the remains of a night at Cornerstone Grill and Loft, she had only one thought in her mind: "At least I'm getting my dinner up."
For the sophomore business major, who shared her story on the condition of anonymity, this was as low as it got. Sitting there in a drunken haze, she reached for her cell phone and, without thinking, speed-dialed her boyfriend. She told him everything - how she lamented every calorie, how she could go for days on end without eating and how she hid it from everyone.
While that night may have been an all-time low, it proved to be a turning point by bringing her anorexia, a disease suffered in secret, out into the open.
That's how, just two weeks before National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, the sophomore found herself sitting anxiously in the waiting room of the second floor of the University Health Center, unsure of what to expect.
"I was shaking the entire time," she said. "I was so scared."
She isn't alone. Between 10 and 20 percent of college students live with eating disorders every day, and the first step toward getting better is to stop suffering alone, said Julie Parsons, a clinical social worker who deals with eating disorders at the Health Center. That is why the National Eating Disorders Association created an annual National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, and why this week's events at the university will be more visible than ever, helping bring the problem of eating disorders into the public eye.
The student group Students Educating about Eating Disorders has planned a variety of events throughout the week, including free screening to test whether people have an eating disorder or whether their habits put them at risk for developing one.
College is a peak time for developing an eating disorder, and for those who began suffering from a disorder in high school, such as the sophomore mentioned above, college can bring it back in full force, Parsons said.
The sophomore said pressure to please her friends, family and boyfriend led to her anorexia. She ate less and less each day until she became so restrictive she could go for days without a single bite. She would spend hours at the gym, only to stumble back to her dorm room, white as a ghost with no energy and spend countless hours sleeping.
When she was awake, Diet Coke was her sole form of sustenance, except for the occasional cracker. But even that seemed too much. She was consuming about 39 calories a day, while the average college women needs at least 2,000, said Health Center nutritionist Jane Jakubczak.
When food becomes an obsession, people waste hours of valuable time thinking about nothing else, Parsons said. "It literally eats up your life."
Tuesday, one by one, students decked out in safety goggles and hard-hats hoisted a 4-foot-long mallet onto their shoulders and brought it smashing down on to what is, for many, the source of the obsession: the bathroom scale.
The scale smashing was a first on this campus, but is an idea the NEDA recommends to symbolize the liberation students feel when they overcome their addiction to the scale.
"It's absurd that a number on a scale determines whether you are happy or sad or whether you like yourself or don't," Parsons said.
"I hate f---ing scales," agreed Valerie Goehring, a junior women's studies major, as she slammed the mallet onto an unsuspecting white scale. Goehring said the act symbolized freeing women from society's conviction being healthy means being skinny.
For the sophomore business major, this conviction was all too familiar.
She could pull on her size four Lucky Jeans, top them off with a size small Ralph Lauren Polo shirt, straighten her long hair and be ready to hit the bars with her girls - but to her, the size four and the small were still too big.
She just wanted to drop those last few pounds and be the same size as Lindsey Lohan in a picture she would secretly steal glances at when her roommate wasn't looking. She kept it hidden in her desk, in the same drawer where she stashed her diet pills concealed in a Tylenol bottle.
Many people who suffer from eating disorders are too ashamed to tell anyone, let alone reach out to sources that can offer help, Parsons said.
"Telling anyone takes tremendous courage," Parsons said.
Fears of being judged ran through the sophomore's mind as she sat in a straight-backed chair in the Health Center waiting room two weeks ago, visibly shaking. A friend who agreed to wait with her backed out at the last minute, so she went alone. As she filled out the routine paperwork, she kept wondering what came next. Would they make her gain a lot of weight? Would her parents freak out when they found out? Would anyone be there to support her?
After her first visit, some of her fears were calmed. She still has not told her parents or friends, but she knows she will not be sent away, and she will continue to meet with the counselor.
Another friend offered to wait with her the following week when she returned for her next visit, but she politely declined, thanking her friend for the support and adding, "This is something I have to do myself."
Contact reporter Jess Milcetich at milcetichdbk@gmail.com.
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