By Katherine Gibson (The Cascade)
Art by Anthony Biondi (The Cascade)
Print Edition: October 30, 2013
The impact of eating disorders
For many women, weight is an ongoing struggle. Whether you’re taking part in the latest diet trend or dragging yourself to the gym, we all understand the pressures to maintain a toned physique in order to stay beautiful, or—as we’ve been told—to stay thin. But for some women, the stress to maintain this body standard goes beyond just resisting the temptation to eat a greasy McDonald’s burger – it means resisting the urge to eat at all.
Eating disorders, most commonly anorexia and bulimia, have become increasingly common in young women. In fact, eating disorders are now the third most common chronic illness in adolescent girls.
According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, approximately three per cent of Canadian women will be affected by some form of this illness during their lifetime. And while three per cent may not seem like a large number, in relation to Canada’s entire population, the figure is staggering.
For one UFV student*, this illness became a personal struggle after leaving high school. Finding herself overwhelmed by the freedom and uncertainty of post-secondary life, she chose to deal with her feelings by controlling her food intake.
“It got really bad after high school, and I got super thin. I got super, super thin,” she explains. “Looking back, I was skin and bone, like I was teetering between maybe 95 and 100 pounds.”
Although her controlled eating began as a form of dealing with a life change, it very quickly became ingrained into her identity – so much so that her intensely thin physique became a symbol of pride. Recalling an instance with an old boyfriend, she reflects on the strong connection she made between the state of her body and her own personal worth.
“I asked a guy that I saw for a little while for a back massage one night and he said, ‘Oh my God – you’re all bones!’” she continues. “And I just remember having the hugest smile on my face and thinking that was the best compliment ever because I was literally bones—I was just bones—I was skin and bones.”
Eating disorders are primarily seen in females during their youth. However, these eating disorders are an extreme symptom of a female body image issue that begins early on in girls’ lives.
The Canadian Mental Health Association estimates that up to 40 per cent of nine-year-old girls have dieted to lose weight, even when they were at a normal weight. Statistics like these reveal the importance of programming in schools to foster healthy body images at an early age.
While there are resources and counselling staff available at the high school level for sufferers of eating disorders, the availability of these resources becomes much smaller once students graduate and leave.
*Name withheld for privacy reasons
Local resources limited
Questioning the available resources outside the school system is well warranted, as there is only one major publicly funded option for eating disorder treatment in Abbotsford and Chilliwack: Fraser Health.
Fraser Health’s eating disorder treatment program is comprehensive and works to help every individual, no matter where they are in the recovery process.
“The hope of the program is to meet clients where they’re at,” Esther Naayer, Fraser Health’s eating disorder clinician, explains. So if people aren’t ready to make change we can start from there. Like if they’re asking themselves questions like, ‘How can I be in school?’ or, ‘How can I be social and have a part-time job if I’m struggling with an eating disorder?’ we can help them. If they want to work on recovery,” she continues, “then we work with them moving forward.”
This outpatient program, which facilitates individual counselling, group counselling, medical care, and dietitian appointments, gives participants the opportunity to have someone come alongside them and help them through the recovery process.
However, as the only large public resource in Abbotsford and Chilliwack, this program is oversaturated, with a waitlist of two to three months for service. Naayer believes the scarcity of public services addressing eating disorders in the area has a lot to do with money.
“It comes down to funding. In the bigger cities they will have a full regional program,” she notes. “It’s something we’ve advocated for, but right now, just due to funding it hasn’t happened.”
Long term solutions?
While additional funding for programs like Fraser Health’s would help, the issues surrounding body image and eating disorders remain.
Currently, most resources are found online in the form of websites designed to provide sufferers with the information and skill sets needed to proactively combat these disorders.
Easily brought up with a browser search of “body image,” websites offer free, comprehensive tests for students to take and assess their own sense of body-worth. Other online tests, such as the “Eating Disorder Checklist,” more specifically identify whether or not individuals demonstrate eating disorder tendencies.
UFV counsellor Eileen Burkholder also suggests online resources for students who are suffering with an eating disorder. Burkholder recommends going to the websites Heretohelp and Kelty Mental Health. Both sites give extensive fact sheets on body image and self-esteem, as well as link users to other related websites that provide free, accurate body image information.
The Canadian Mental Health Association and the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) are also online resources that provide a broad spectrum of information in regards to eating disorder awareness and the help that is available.
While local resources are limited, they are still available. Beyond Fraser Health, there is also Anorexics and Bulimics Anonymous (ABA), a group that runs similarly to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), but is specific to eating disorders. This group, like Fraser Health, works with individuals in order to provide personalized support for those looking for help with their personal recovery process.
More intensive help, such as the Woodstone Residence’s live-in program on Galiano Island, provides individuals with a more structured approach to recovery. Offering a wide range of programming, from meal support and nutrition education to art therapy and community involvement, this program is geared specifically to the individual needs of each person enrolled.
These resources are all effective, but they address women only after they have developed an eating disorder. How do we as a community stop girls from feeling that they need to use eating disorders as a means of maintaining an idealized body?
Perhaps the long-term solution is in breaking through the lies eating disorders thrive on. The lies that tell us that we’re alone; that we should be ashamed; that we are in a solitary fight against our society, our friends, our family, ourselves, and even our own bodies.
Maybe the solution lies in acknowledging daily that we are worth more than we weigh, that there is power in small steps towards recovery, and that it is never a weakness to reach out for help when you need it.
