By Katrina Penaflor

Nearly 20% of women and 10% of men on a college campus have an eating disorder

The organization, SPEAK, which stands for Students Promoting Equity, Activism and Knowledge, put together a special presentation Wednesday, Oct. 15, to bring awareness to students about eating disorders. The two speakers, Amy Hammermeister and Emily Swart, helped dismiss common misconceptions about eating disorders and shared their own personal insight.

The presentation began with a video of poetry slammer, Katie Makkai, defining the word “pretty”. Katie spoke with passion and enthusiasm and made it known that the word “pretty” should not define a woman and society needs to stop enforcing what they think makes a person “attractive”.

Following the video, Hammermeister, a professor of Nutrition and Human Sexuality, presented. She presented a PowerPoint on disordered eating and eating disorders. The difference between the two is that disordered eating, for example chronic dieting, is a precursor for an eating disorder. It can have severe health risks, like poor nutrition and low energy.

Commonly undiagnosed by doctors and physicians, disordered eating is typically not considered a severe enough condition or problem to be labeled a disorder. The issue with this is that not enough people receive the help needed when dealing with disordered eating. An eating disorder, as defined by Hammermeister is, “[a] psychiatric disorder that must be clinically diagnosed by a physician.” Some examples are anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating.

Eating disorders can be set off by a variety of triggers like family stress, off handed comments about a person’s body, unrealistic media images, body image or sociocultural values. Hammermeister provided some valuable information on ways to offset these triggers. Intuitive eating is one, respecting a body’s signals of hunger, gentle nutrition and learning to reject a diet mentality can all help a person make peace with food and keep their body healthy.

The next speaker was Swart, a receptionist at The Cottage and a board assistant. She gave an emotional and powerful talk about her personal experience with an eating disorder. She spoke openly about her battle with anorexia and how she was able to recover from it.

It took strength and support from friends and family to learn that, “self-care is not selfish.” Swart finds it important to bring eating disorders into the light, so that people can become more aware and knowledgeable about them.

Loving and learning to be comfortable with one’s body is immensely important, like Swart said, “life is too short for self-hatred and celery sticks”.