Stress of freshman year can trigger eating disorders for some young people

Thank you to the University of Alabama at Birmingham for releasing this great article!

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August 19, 2010

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - While the start of college is a positive, momentous event for many young people, it also can be an episode that pushes some into a dangerous battle with eating disorders, says University of Alabama at Birmingham Associate Professor of Psychology Mary Boggiano, Ph.D., who fought her own battle against bulimia as a college student. Hear her story.

Stress can trigger an eating disorder, and for the college student who is away from home for the first time, the stress of moving into a totally different environment and meeting new people can make them more susceptible to developing an eating disorder, says Boggiano. Even new positive events are processed by the brain as stressful, she says.

"A lot of students have heard about the 'freshman 15,'" says Boggiano. "To keep from gaining weight, some students engage in risky behaviors such as excessive dieting or purging food. In many cases, people learn about the risky behaviors from others students in their dorm or over the Internet, so that obsession about weight can become infectious."

Boggiano says the common signs of an eating disorder include:

• A preoccupation with calculating calories, fat grams and carbohydrate grams
• A need to weigh oneself more than once a day
• Allowing the numbers on the scale to determine mood
• Exercising, skipping meals or purging after overeating
• Exercising to burn calories rather than for health or for fun
• An inability to stop eating once eating begins
• Eating in secret
• Feeling guilty, ashamed or disgusted after overeating
• Basing self-worth on looks or weight
• Worrying continuously about weight and body shape
• Abusing diet pills or laxatives
  
  Finish article at: http://main.uab.edu/Sites/MediaRelations/articles/79558/
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  Additional Resources for College Students concerned about eating disorders can be found here:
  
  
• College Hope
  
  
• Eating Disorder Specialist Library
  
  
• Eating Disorder Recovery Tools
  
  
• Eating Disorder Recovery Resources