Over years of eating disorder research and studies, Sharlene Hesse-Biber, a professor in the sociology department, has heard her share of young students explain how having the perfect body is everything to them, and that they will go to any extreme to get it.
What's worse, she added, is that far too often the desire driving college-aged men and women into the growing number of eating disorder diagnoses today is simple acceptance.
"One BC girl said rather directly to me, 'call me vain, but my eating disorder lets me know that when I'm at Mary Ann's, the boy I'm interested in will be looking at me, and not her,'" she said.
It is a difficult concept for many to grasp. And today, many still prefer to turn the other way. But as the bubble of silence surrounding the eating disorder endemic in America comes closer to bursting, more people are starting to open up the conversation in an effort to disprove stereotypes attached to the illness and to help those suffering get the treatment they need.
"There's a lot of stigma around eating disorders," said Julie AhnAllen, staff psychologist at BC's University Counseling Services. "People view it as very hush-hush. They don't think it's OK to talk about. But we all struggle with it to a certain degree. Everyone thinks about their body image."
While eating disorders are often caused by other emotional or psychological trauma ranging from stress to depression to physical abuse, Hesse-Biber made the clear distinction between those incidences of the illness and others that are "culturally induced eating problems." It is through the study of these situations - when the negative effects of a particular culture skews judgment - that researchers have determined the powerful role environment plays in eating disorder development.
And the college campus setting is about as worse as it gets.
"College campuses - BC especially - are semi-enclosed environments," Hesse-Biber said. "When you're seeing the same people over and over, it becomes a very visual culture, and people pay close attention to what others look like."
Spring Break
