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[We're all about celebrating a positive body image here at CollegeCandy and many of our readers claim the same thing. However we've noticed that while many commentors are quick to jump to the defense of curvy women, they're even quicker to accuse skinny women of having an eating disorder. This is one (skinny) CollegeCandy writer's reaction.]

I always hated the day when we would watch movies involving a girl with an eating disorder in middle school and high school. Suddenly people would be leaning back in their chairs and furrowing their brows at me. I could never escape their concerned glances, the way they watched me eat my salad I had packed that day. Sometimes I’d even hear them whisper to each other about how I was unhealthy. Usually I would react by rolling my eyes and getting the greasiest pizza slice the cafeteria had to offer. This wouldn’t stop them from shaking their heads when I headed to the bathroom after lunch. Read More »

The average woman sees 400-600 advertisements per day. By the time she is 17 years old, she has seen over 250,000 commercials. With the constant message of beauty and perfection reminding women every day of their flaws, many girls are self-conscious about their appearance, especially their weight. Unfortunately for some, that concern can grow into an obsession, and turn into an eating disorder.

In the U.S. one or two out of every 100 students will have an eating disorder. The most common of these are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Sadly, we usually aren’t aware that someone we know has one until it is too late. My friend Tina (not her real name, obviously) suffered alternatively from anorexia and bulimia for years and she agreed to share her story.

Her anorexia began when she was around eleven years old, and continued on and off. When she began to suffer from bulimia, she was fifteen. She used to throw up after every meal, no matter how small it was. On average, that was about three to five times a day. All of this was so that she would reach her ideal weight of eighty to eighty-five pounds, which is the weight she was in 7^th and 8^th grade.

Tina said that before eating a meal, regardless of how hungry she was, she would feel guilty for eating. She would tell herself to go ahead and consume the food, as long as she threw it up afterward. While eating she would feel “disgusted and bloated,” and regret eating at all as soon as she finished. Because of this Tina says, “sometimes I had to force myself to eat.” Read More »

So maybe you’ve never gone more than 24 hours without food. Maybe you’ve never taken a laxative or made yourself throw up after eating too much. You don’t have an Eating Disorder. But how much of your day is spent thinking about food?

When you are out with friends, are you comparing what everyone else is eating to what you are eating, figuring out the calories instead of enjoying their company? Have you ever doubled your workouts to compensate for splurging on a slice of pizza? Can you barely even remember a time when you weren’t trying out the latest diet?

You don’t have to have an eating disorder to have an unhealthy relationship with food. It’s called Disordered Eating and it can be emotionally draining, physically exhausting or even lead to a full blown Eating Disorder.

Disordered Eating starts with a mentality rather than a behavior. If you are lucky to eat one real meal a day during finals week because you are so crazed trying to cram everything in, it’s not good for you, but it’s not a symptom of Disordered Eating. If you only eat one meal a day during finals week so you can at least be in control of your diet since everything else is so hectic, that’s Disordered Eating. It can present itself in many ways, but here are a few of the most common. Read More »

Here at CollegeCandy, we’ve discussed and confronted body issues many-a-times. Whether its about the downfall of too-skinny models, or the recent obsession of using plus-sized models for “contrast”, these articles always incite heated debate. Even posts unrelated to the subject get pulled into the fire!

While we all might not see eye-to-eye in the quest to define the un-definable “perfect body,” we can all agree that college women have some very strong opinions on the subject. Girls our age are the most affected, and most targeted, by a society that thinks Jessica Simpson is fat, so it’s not surprising that the number of girls with eating disorders has been on the rise. New studies have shown that up to 19% of female college students are bulimic and up to 15% of those without eating disorders display patterns of disordered eating.

I’ve had my own battles with anorexia for four years, and have confronted a few friends with their own eating habits (or lack thereof). I’ve been on both sides of the situation and can tell you than it’s not easy confronting a friend from either point of view. So here are a few do’s and don’ts that will help you when you suspect a friend might be in need. Read More »

It’s the hushed whispers in the floor bathroom after a girl walks out. It’s skipping meals and doubling up on gym time. It’s body-bashing other people’s and your own body with your friends. It’s losing friends and alienating people. It’s taking a risk with your health. It’s keeping quiet. It’s keeping you from living your life in college and beyond to the fullest. It’s time to talk about it!

But about what exactly? Eating disorders. Yep, it’s time to talk about them, girls. That’s the slogan for the National Eating Disorders Association’s (NEDA’s) National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (NEDAW), February 21-27th 2010.

The goal of NEDAW is “to ultimately prevent eating disorders and body image issues while reducing the stigma surrounding eating disorders and improving access to treatment,” says the NEDAW website. “Eating disorders are serious, life-threatening illnesses — not choices — and it’s important to recognize the pressures, attitudes and behaviors that shape the disorder.”

And that’s what we’ll be doing on CollegeCandy all week long. We’ll be covering the basics: what eating disorders look like, how to help a friend in need, disordered eating and losing weight the healthy way. We want to bring this difficult and serious issue to the forefront and help our friends in need.

So what do eating disorders look like? Well, just like people, they come in all shapes and sizes. Signs of eating disorders are far more varied than most people think. Sure, looking emaciated might be a tip-off that something is wrong, but there are so many more things to be aware of.

Each eating disorder, (there are four main types – Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder and Eating Disorders not otherwise specified), has it’s own set of signs and symptoms. Of course, many of these overlap. Read More »

Food. Body image. Health. Things we think about everyday. With ads on TV, in magazines, on the radio and with restaurants and fast food places changing menus to provide healthier options, it’s not our fault that food is on our minds a little bit too often. But did you know that even thinking about food could be having a dangerous affect on us?

Eating disorders have always been around, and are spreading like wildfire nowadays. But we’re not just talking about anorexia and bulimia, disorders where you either starve yourself or binge and purge. We’re talking about a new disorder associated with eating healthy. Meet Orthorexia, a serious disorder that may plague a lot more people than you think, including yourself.

Orthorexia nervosa is a condition in which people become obsessed with eating the “right” kinds of foods. We may roll our eyes and call them “health freaks” but the truth is that this is a very serious condition. Orthorexia causes people to obsess over what is eaten, how much is eaten, and how it is prepared.

So what’s so bad about being obsessed with eating healthy? Read More »

I remember those naive high school days when puking during a rager meant that a) you couldn’t control your liquor and b) the party was over, for you. That’s why I was shocked one night during my freshman year of college, when my friend came back from the bathroom and proudly announced, “Oh, man, I just puked my brains out!”

I immediately switched to babysitter-mode. “Are you okay? Do we need to leave?” I asked, fully concerned.

“Nope!” My friend replied. “Got more room for beer now!”

At the time, this was an unprecedented occurrence to me. I’d never considered the theory of “puke and rally.”

A few years later, I’ve totally become acquainted with this practice. One summer, after a coworker tried unsuccessfully to light three consecutive shots of Sambuca on fire in mouth, I knew that that much booze so quickly was not going to be good. After the third shot went down, I booked it for the bathroom and barfed. A friend was worriedly knocking on the bathroom door, concerned as I had once been for my own friend. I opened the door, and she asked if I was okay. My response?

“Let’s rage!” Read More »

Laurie Sliva is the founder and director of BRIDGES Camp for Girls, a self-esteem and leadership building summer camp.  We met up with Laurie when we were doing research for CollegeCandy’s Eating Disorder Awareness week and knew instantly that her work and message had to be shared.

We are all fed up with our society’s impossible and unrealistic perception of beauty, and Laurie urges women everywhere to stop trying to change our bodies and start trying to change our mindsets.

I read somewhere that women have a negative thought about their bodies every 15 minutes. Sadly, this doesn’t surprise me.  I can look at my own thoughts over the years and say that sounds about right.  The more I talk to women and girls of all ages and body types, the more

I realize I am not alone.

I did feel alone at one point. I didn’t know that other girls felt like me.  In junior high, the pain of feeling left out, created an overwhelming desire to feel accepted and to feel a sense of belonging.  After losing some of my post-gymnastics, puberty weight the summer before high school, I noticed I got a little more attention from guys and girls. I felt pretty good. Soon I began skipping all meals except dinner with my family (so they wouldn’t find me out) and, when I needed more control, I began throwing up every night after dinner. My battle with anorexia-bulimia took over my life for the next six years my thoughts were occupied with how I was not going to eat, or if I had to eat, when I could throw it up, and how I would hide it from everyone who cared about me. My recovery began my sophomore year of college for a variety of reasons and with the support of family and friends who really didn’t have any idea how to help. Read More »

When we decided to devote a week on CollegeCandy to eating disorder awareness, we wanted to get some facts and statistics from the experts. We reached out to the people who study and know these diseases best, and in doing so, met Stacey, a survivor who is using her rough past to help others. We immediately fell in love with both this woman and her message and wanted to introduce her to you.

Here is Stacey’s story:

Don’t get me wrong, I love guys (I mean I LOVE guys), but what if the story had been different?  What if Adam had emerged from Eve’s rib instead of vice-versa?  Would we be living in an entirely different world?  Would a woman’s success be gauged monetarily and a man’s physically?  Would aggressiveness be seen as a feminine quality and submissiveness as masculine?  Would women eat whatever they wanted while men counted every one tenth of a calorie?  I have no idea, but I asked this five years ago when starting EvesRib.com, a company that promotes positive body image and self-esteem in girls and women through fashion, while donating a portion of our proceeds to the National Eating Disorders Association.  However, this was not the only thing that led to The Creation of Eve’s Rib.

I used to miss school because I was too ugly, miss parties because I was too fat, and miss life because I was too [insert any and all negative adjectives here.]  It was assumed that I would grow out of this after high school, but things only got worse.   While having a blast on the outside—seriously, an All-American, collegiate blast—I perfected the art of self-hatred on the inside, and no one was the wiser; sometimes not even myself. Read More »