Eating Disorders

Overview: Everyone eats! Most people enjoy the sensations emanating from the cooking, smelling, chewing, swallowing and satiation food provides for our daily activities and well-being. However, some people, often women but increasingly men, choose subconsciously to focus on negative aspects of food and body and ultimately, their body weight and body image helps create a dis-ease around food.

Food may no longer be seen as an essential daily necessity but as an enemy to be avoided at all costs, even health, out of fear of fat and gaining weight. Most eating disorders are thought to start with a diet and the perception that one’s body is not perfect enough. Eating smaller (or larger) amounts of food than usual gradually moves beyond control in some people and develops into an eating disorder.

The more common types of eating disorders are: anorexia nervosa characterized by a fear of gaining weight or becoming overweight while the person adamantly maintains a dangerously low body weight; bulimia nervosa characterized by at least 2 binge eating episodes per week for 3 months duration with each binge followed by extreme feelings of guilt and shame and use of methods to purge oneself of the extra calories either through vomiting, laxatives or excessive exercise; and finally, binge eating disorder (BED) in which the individual binges on large quantities of food in a short amount of time (occurrence: 2 days a week for 6 months) with no efforts to relief themselves of the food or associated guilt by purging or exercising.

In 2003, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill stated that females between the ages of 12 and 25 comprise the greater share (90%) of those suffering from an eating disorder. As the stigma of an eating disorder is lessoned and recognized as a treatable mental illness, more men and older women have sought treatment. Less well understood but observed is the increasing number of young men that are affected by these disorders (U.S. DHHS Office on Women's Health, 2000).

What Thielen Student Health Center Can Do For You: TSHC Wellness staff work in collaboration with ISU’s Student Counseling Services located on third floor of the Student Services Building. An eating disorder assessment and treatment plan is devised and the student assigned to a counselor and/or as ED support group. Referred to a Nutrition Therapist or Registered, Licensed Dietitian, the student is helped to recognize usual triggers for compulsive overeating and not eating. Strategies and goals are set to achieve between appointments. Follow-up appointments of 15 or 30 minutes are available and encouraged to measure progress and success with healthy eating choices and moderate physical activity.

Resources

Last update: 22 Oct 2007

For more information, please contact:
Iowa State University
Thielen Student Health Center
515-294-5801