Guidance

This back to school season always strikes me with concern. Eating disorders are often triggered by the college experience. Statistics show some startling realities:

“As many as 10% of college women suffer from a clinical or nearly clinical eating disorder, including 5.1% who suffer from bulimia nervosa.
Studies indicate that by their first year of college, 4.5 to 18% of women and 0.4% of men have a history of bulimia…”
(The National Institute of Mental Health, National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders)

Indeed, it was my reality. As a child and a teenager who always struggled with her weight, I determined college to be my “reinvention.” If I could just be thin, I could be a new, better person. And so, oh, so slowly, I descended into eating disorders. I discuss it in my book, “Thin Enough: My Spiritual Journey Through the Living Death of an Eating Disorder.”

It started as a diet. However, it didn’t stop there. Eventually I was engulfed in anorexia, culminating in an unhealthy low weight of eighty pounds, not to mention, weakness and dizziness just to name a couple of health issues I encountered. Furthermore, that anorexic condition eventually morphed into another dangerous disorder, bulimia; I gained one hundred plus pounds within a number of months. And, with that rapid weight gain, I experienced heart fluttering, shortness of breath and suicidal thoughts. Simply stated-I was miserable, unhealthy and out of control.