*Names changed to protect identity
This story includes stories from students who are struggling or have struggled with eating disorders.
Then-junior Josie Lenger’s brain felt foggy. She glanced back and forth from her math review to her notes, but her eyes were blurry and she couldn’t make out her own handwriting.
Maybe I just need to wake myself up.
Lenger hadn’t eaten all day, but out of habit, she walked to the bathroom to perform what had become her post-meal-ritual — purging.
She ended up pumping all of the fluids out of her system and had to be rushed to the hospital. Lenger didn’t tell the doctors surrounding her hospital bed about her cycles of purging in attempt to rid her body of any fluid or food she ingested, but they could tell. Her liver was close to failing, her bladder was unnaturally dry, she had an ovarian cyst and possible appendicitis — all as a result of her eating disorder.
The doctors diagnosed Lenger with bulimia, an eating disorder that involves self-induced vomiting. However, she’s not alone. According to a study done by The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, about 11% of high school students are diagnosed with an eating disorder, and approximately 95% of eating disorder cases occurring in people ages 12-25.
In a survey of 136 East students, 80% said they know someone with disordered eating habits. With Eating Disorder Awareness Week starting Feb. 22, many students who have struggled with eating disorders find importance in sharing their stories to bring attention to the magnitude of the problem.
In the survey, students stated they turn to disordered eating habits as a coping mechanism to deal with the physical changes of puberty along with the added stress of school, family, peers and social media. These habits can include restricting, binging or purging food, or taking popular diets and exercise routines to an extreme.
Licensed clinical therapist Emma Wood, who works with patients in the Johnson County area, said that eating disorders are often accompanied and provoked by an underlying diagnosis. People struggling with anorexia often grapple with perfectionism, OCD or generalized anxiety, whereas people struggling with bulimia and binge eating often experience impulsivity caused by an addiction background, bipolar disorder, ADHD or alcoholism.
According to Wood, when these underlying disorders combine with the transitions teenagers experience, teens often turn to an eating disorder to cope.
“There’s all those developmental transitions like puberty, early bloomers, late bloomers and how that impacts body image, in addition to the different developmental tasks,” Wood said. “Kids might get overwhelmed because of social dynamics or body image change or grades or sports or a divorce. All these transitions happen, and then the eating disorder pops up when they don’t know how to cope with that developmental transition.”
Recent East graduate Clara Von Drehle — who graduated at semester to focus on her treatment — has struggled with restricting, binging and purging food as a coping mechanism for feeling out of place since middle school.
“I did grow up being bigger than any of my friends,” Von Drehle said. “I didn’t fit into any of my friends’ clothes, my sisters were smaller than me, my mom sort of had ingrained diet culture into me from a young age because she struggled with body image too. [I grew] up in a chaotic household [and had] turmoil in [my] childhood. Then I came across the eating disorder. That gave me a sense of control and something that I could feel good about, even though it was making me feel terrible.”
This unhealthy coping mechanism is a way to suppress feelings and blur the line between emotions and food, according to Wood. People with binge-eating disorders emotionally eat to cover feelings of boredom and sadness, while people struggling with anorexia restrict food to feel a sense of control, along with becoming numb and dizzy to suppress emotions.
Social media is a significant contributor to insecurities and disordered eating habits among teens, according to Wood. Since beginning her career in the ‘90s, Wood has observed how the rise of social media has led to increased body comparison, as many influencers set unrealistic expectations.
East student Jamie Martin* feels this negativity while scrolling past influencers’ workout routines or beach pictures on Instagram. Never seeing her body type represented in media makes her feel as though her body isn’t appreciated.
“If [the media is] like ‘This is what beauty is,’ and then they show the same body 100 times, it’s difficult to kind of feel like your own body is beautiful,” Martin said. “I still haven’t seen [my body represented] because I’m kind of short and smaller, but I definitely have thicker thighs. [I sit] in the back of my coach’s car and notice how much tighter my knee pads look [than other girls’]. That’s not really something you’re going to see in the supermodel industry — how tight someone’s knee pads look on them.”
Because of the toxicity of social media, Lenger forces herself to delete her social media periodically, giving her a break from comparing her body type and eating habits to the sometimes unrealistic ones shown on Instagram and TikTok.
“I take monthly breaks from social media because I don’t really care to see, ‘Oh my gosh, she got a new bikini’ or ‘What I eat in a day’ videos,” Lenger said. “I’m thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, if I eat one strawberry I literally blow up,’ [comparing myself to the thin] girls who can eat a whole McDonald’s meal. [It helps] to understand your body is your body, no one else has control over it. No one else knows what goes on.”
East provides social workers, located in the counseling center, to help students battling with disordered eating habits and other mental health struggles. After receiving referrals from parents, teachers or administrators or being contacted by the students themselves, the social worker will sit down with the student to gather information about the concern and take steps towards treatment.
Although the social workers are able to help fix only the academic side of the issue — whether that means changing schedules or shortening their workload — they also help the student and family navigate outside resources and treatment.
“If somebody is needing an intensive outpatient program, that’s going to take hours on a daily basis, but those parents and students need to know that it’s okay, that mental health comes first,” social worker Emily MacNaughton said. “If you’ve identified with being a really strong student or strong in theater or strong in the arts, it’s hard to put that aside and focus on yourself. So that’s a role where we can help, because you’re going to miss school.”
East student Evan Wilson* has sought support from school-provided social workers since being diagnosed with a restrictive eating disorder in middle school.
“In middle school, [social worker] Mrs. Oliver was the one to help me get treatment in the first place,” Wilson said. “Then in high school, I’ve worked with the social workers a lot. For a while, I would eat lunch in the counselor’s office to make sure that I was eating and keep me on track because school is the place where I would restrict my eating. And then they’re always there to talk, they’re always there to listen, which is really helpful.”
According to Wood, teens struggling with eating disorders often do not seek help on their own because they believe the eating disorder is serving them in a positive way, either improving their body image or coping with emotions. In this case, Wood believes friends should intervene and approach the problem from a place of concern.
“It’s important to not be judgmental,” Wood said. “Confront them in a way that is like, ‘I’m concerned, here’s what I’m observing. I’m here for you. I want you to get help.’ It’s saying I love you too much to keep this a secret. They’ll be like, ‘This is my eating disorder, don’t tell anyone,’ but sometimes it’s just meant to get a professional involved.”
Wilson also believes it’s important to provide support for struggling friends and be cognizant of the point they are at in their recovery when spending time with them.
“One of my closest friends has [an eating disorder] and we would do activities that weren’t focused around food,” Wilson said. “We would go to a movie, but we wouldn’t go out to lunch because I knew that could be triggering. And then eventually, we got to the stage where we could go out for lunch and I could encourage her to eat and tell her she could do it.”
For Von Drehle, having friends and family be patient with her recovery process was one of the most supportive factors. She understands that having loved ones suffer with an eating disorder can be frustrating because the recovery process often includes relapsing into old habits due to unresolved emotional trauma.
Finding intrinsic motivation by reminding herself of future goals helped Von Drehle pursue her recovery, even through these relapses.
“The weird thing about eating disorders is… a lot of times part of the disorder is wanting it to get worse,” Von Drehle said. “So finding that motivation, like I want to travel the world one day, I want to be able to have a family, I want to make good memories with my friends again, things that you can look forward to on the other side of recovery, helps the process.”
Freshman Izzy Margolin is working towards recovery from her restrictive eating disorder. She attends intensive outpatient therapy 11 hours a week which includes meal planning, therapy and meal support.
Although she is still in the recovery process, Margolin is very thankful to have support within the outpatient therapy and recommends that anyone who is struggling asks for support from a friend, parent, social worker, therapist or other adult.
“Ask for help,” Margolin said. “When I was struggling I was like, ‘This is what I want,’ but it’s not the right thing to do. At my sickest points I felt like sh*t all the time. Headaches, nauseous, almost passing out. Eating is so much better than feeling like that. It’s definitely worse to suffer in silence about it than to get help and be healthy.”