You are dedicated, motivated, a perfectionist. You like to feel empowered. You put 100% into whatever you do. For the most part, this will ensure that you fly through your degree, get an amazing job, and fulfill some of your many hopes and dreams. But what happens when your ultimate target becomes weight loss? When you are more proud of yourself for eating less than 500 calories in a day than getting a first on the essay you worked so hard on or the lead part in a play?
If you look around you in Cambridge, many students show visible signs of having eating disorders. Pressured, high-achieving academic environments are proven to be conducive to a higher incidence of problems such as Anorexia Nervosa. Not only this, but it is a middle class phenomenon: 1% of girls in private schools, versus 0.2% of girls in state schools suffer from anorexia. As a spokesperson for the student counseling service comments: "Although this is difficult to prove statistically, we are pretty clear that this problem area is more common amongst the Cambridge student population than in most other populations. We see quite a number of students with eating problems here in the UCS typically about 100 per year (out of 1100 – 1200 who used the service). The real incidence is higher than this, as we know there are students who do not seek our help." In Cambridge, the issue, or at least reportage of it, is increasing: in the last 12 years, the proportion of people seen with eating problems at the counseling service has increased from 6-9% of the people who seek help there. This rise corresponds with a general increase in numbers of people known to suffer from eating disorders in the UK. From 1996-2006 cases of people admitted to hospital due to anorexia increased from 419 to 620.
But what makes outgoing, otherwise confident Cambridge students endanger their health under the crippling influence of eating disorders? It is interesting that, in a place where so much emphasis is placed on the intellectual, unhappiness should take such a bodily manifestation. Is it the stress of deadlines and supervisions that is causing the problem, or just the kinds of determined high-achieving individuals who find themselves here? Amy*, a successful sportsplayer who has suffered from bouts of bulimia and binge eating since she was 17, explains: "Binge eating is very private. No-one knows you do it. It's a way of detaching yourself from life. Afterwards you feel bad, but that's okay because at least it's something that you are allowed to feel bad about. It takes your mind off the other things that you were worried about."
Similarly, Laura*, whose fight with anorexia stretched from the age of 12 up until her first term at Cambridge, says she used food as a means have ultimate control over her life. As the kind of secondary school student who 'did everything', her energy, drive and intelligence were put to use calculating the calorie content of each meal, and finding new techniques for weight loss on the internet, such as the 2468 diet, in which the participant constantly changes each day's calorie intake in order to prevent their weight from platauing. On the fifth day of the cycle, you eat nothing. As Laura explained to me, with a kind of wry expertise: "When you keep eating less than 1000 calories a day, your metabolism changes so you stop losing weight, so you have to shock your metabolism into action." As a 'moderate' anorexic (the middle category between mild and acute diagnoses), Laura was never admitted as an in-patient, though throughout her teen years she had regular contact with nurses, doctors and specialists: "They threatened me with hospitalisation, though my weight never dropped below the threshold where they have to put you in hospital. They write you a letter, quoting all the things you have said during an interview- they want to make you see, to prove you have a problem by showing you your words on paper. It was horrible to read." Luckily for Laura, changing environment and coming to Cambridge proved to be a positive turn in her fight against anorexia. A fresh start, and new friends who were not willing to buy into the 'open secret' approach by which her problem was surrounded at home helped, as did the support of the college nurse.
By contrast, Amy has found the university environment an added pressure: "You have more freedom to eat what you want at university, and there is no-one checking up on you for strange behaviour. At home I would have to be more secretive about binging. I would feel bad if anyone saw me eat that much. A lot of the time I feel like I can't do work without food next to me or eating while I work. " Amy's relationship with food and work is perhaps shared to a lesser extent by most people. Who hasn't promised themselves chocolate as a reward for finished a paragraph, or eaten their way a packet of biscuits whilst ploughing through their work? The notion of food as a guilty reward is promoted to us from every angle: we are persuaded that food should be decadent, just as we are shown that thinness is desirable. Yet the esculation of either, from a preoccupation to an obsession, seems to be marked by a need to cope. For Amy, it is academic life that poses the challenge: "I justify it to myself that I'm just using it to get through it just this once. The pressure is continuous. There is never a break where you think that there is no work at all that you could do. There is always the next essay deadline looming on the horizon."
Chris*, an athlete who has competed at various sports to a high level since his early teens, described his experience when during school, his natural talent for running led to him developing anorexia: "The thing was, I was doing really well at running. At first I didn't even notice it, but I began to cut out all high fat parts of my diet. I couldn't eat unless I knew I was going to exercise. Then I did notice, and the scariest part was, I didn't care. It got so bad that I grew my hair long to try and hide what was happening. My mum was the person that noticed. Even now, if a sport I am doing requires me to lose weight, she isn't happy about it. As a guy, eating disorders are not something which are generally recognized as a problem, but whether you are starving yourself as part of an image-conscious diet that spins out of control, or as part of a strict sports routine, the way in which the disease can spiral is the same. " Chris' experience of anorexia has made him determined never to fall back into old habits, but he still finds it difficult to talk about. "I see it as a sign of weakness" he admits, "I hate the idea of being out of control of myself in that way."
During the time that they were suffering from eating disorders, Amy, Laura and Chris all maintained active, outwardly successful lives. That people can be severely affected by diseases like anorexia and yet continue to thrive academically, go out and drink, and 'act normal' is part of what enables sufferers and those who are worried about them to allow concerns to go unspoken for long periods of time. Among friends, confronting issues of food is often taboo. I asked all three of my interviewees what they would suggest someone do if they were concerned that a friend had an eating disorder. Amy advised: "If you're really close, talk to them. Don't give up on them. Let them know you love them. They can get better. Get them to see some help if they can't stop and you're not making a difference." Laura also agreed that good friends should try and talk to the person they are worried about, and keep an eye of them. But the nature of the disease is secretive, she warned. Be prepared for denial: one of the biggest elements in the development of an eating disorder is practicing the arts of deceptive eating.
*Names have been changed
If you are worried you have an eating disorder- even if you think it isn't serious, talk to someone about it- contact your college nurse or the University Counseling Service (Tel: 01223 332865; Email: reception@counselling.cam.ac.uk) Alternatively, B-eat is a national eating disorder helpline 08456 341414÷help@b-eat.co.uk
Related Articles
No related articles.
