Liz Collins was 8 years old when she witnessed her older sister deal with an eating disorder.

With the atmosphere surrounding her, she said it was no surprise when at age 13 or 14 she developed an eating disorder.

‘I had it stuck in my mind that I wanted to lose weight because I wanted to look attractive,’ said Collins, president of Body Related Issues Discussion Groups, Education and Support. ‘I was under the impression that I was just not good looking and that everything would change if I were skinnier.’

Issues like Collins’ have prompted the Psychological Services Center to start a Body Image group that will begin in March. It will join other on-campus eating disorder resource groups, like BRIDGES.

The Psychological Services Center is looking for participants in what co-leaders Dani Arigo and Kristin Heron call a skills group focused on body image. The group is not targeting eating disorders, but rather the perception one has of their body and the dissatisfaction that might lead someone to engage in eating disorder behaviors, Arigo said.

‘I still have foods like cake, cheesecake in particular, that will never be just a piece of cake,’ said Collins, a senior environmental resource engineering major. ‘It’s never just food. Even if I try to think about how many calories it has or how unhealthy it is, I’ll never be able to eat it without regard like my peers do.’

Collins began working out excessively. She still ate three meals a day, but a meal could have been an apple. Restricting calorie intake paired with exercising often isn’t what most people think of as an eating disorder.

The goal of the skills group is to teach college women ways to feel better about their body and to reduce the depression, sadness, anxiety or stress related to their body in certain situations, Heron said. Also, the group hopes to help people to embrace their bodies and feel more comfortable.

‘This is the first time we’re doing it, but it’s something we hope to continue in the future,’ Heron said. ‘It is definitely the first time it’s been offered out of the Psychological Services Center and as far as we’re aware, it’s the first time it’s been offered on campus.’

Arigo and Heron began discussing the idea of a skills group more than a year ago, but began planning at the middle to the end of last semester. As researchers with an interest in body image and eating issues, both see the need for this type of group.

Groups will be small and confidential with a maximum of eight female students meeting on a weekly basis for six to eight weeks.

Entering the fray

Currently, BRIDGES is the only group tackling body image issues on campus.

The group aims to create a supportive atmosphere where women and men feel comfortable coming and sharing their feelings and experiences, Collins said. As of now, the group consists of six active and dedicated members.

Eating disorders and body image issues are often misunderstood, said Darya Rotblat, adviser for the campus group BRIDGES.

The group holds weekly ‘Body Chats’ to encourage students to talk about body image, their current or past eating disorder, and other related topics in an informal setting, Rotblat said. With 10 to 20 percent of the female population dealing with or having dealt with an eating disorder, few options are currently available for students dealing with body image issues.

‘If you look at just the undergraduates, you’re looking at 6,000 females,’ Rotblat said. ‘That’s 1,200 people, if you look at the top. If you look at 10 percent, you’re at 600. Yes, the number is high. There is enough that resources should be dedicated to it.’

Members of BRIDGES, including Rotblat and Collins, have debated since the club became official in February 2006 what the group’s mission needs to be. Rotblat is quick to point out that BRIDGES is not a support group.

‘We’re trying to educate the larger population on body images issues, not just eating disorders, but something that affects all of us,’ Collins said.

National Eating Disorder Awareness week, Feb. 22 through 28, provides another opportunity to get the message of BRIDGES out to the student body. The club will be holding a Body Chat Tuesday.

‘We want to reach out for education and also be a support for those who deal with body-image-related issues right now,’ Collins said. ‘We have some recovering anorexics, people who have experienced that and still are affected by that, and sensitive to that.’

The Body Image group has yet to officially begin.

‘We know that there is a lot of research saying that some of the skills and tools that we are going to teach women actually work and they actually help people,’ Heron said. ‘So we’re not just making this stuff up. We wanted to be able to apply some of that stuff that we’ve learned and apply it to try and help people and help them really combat these negative perceptions they have about their bodies.’

kmimamur@syr.edu

Published on February 22, 2009 at 12:00 pm