From chitchat--Developing Eating Disorders and Body Image
 

I thought this discussion was so pertainent out there especially since most folk will be on Spring Break really soon. Please consider being safe and know that Image isn't everything...

Get the help that you need if you have an eating disorder. It's very dangerous to your health. For both women and now men!!!

No, you don't have to "look" thin, fat, whatever to join any GLO because you can have the same issues if you weren't interested. So, eating disorders don't discriminate!!

Here's a question to throw one out there:

If say, a girl who's interested in a sorority develops an eating disorder when she pledges, is it considered hazing if she gets sent to the hospital???

If you, or any one you know, has an eating disorder, or any other nutritional (sp?) needs, you should seek professional guidence. Like my mom. Um...I forget the work number, but I'll find it and post it here.

If a girl develops a disorder while pledging, and this depends on her condition--it shouldn't be the sorority's responsibility to send her to the hospital, regardless of if she wants to go or not. If the girl doesn't want to go to the hospital, I don't think the sorority has a right to keep her there. Still, I don't know if this could be considered hazing because they're trying to help her, not put her life in danger...right? http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/confused.gif

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If anyone you know develops an eating disorder, please direct them to help immediately. One fantastic organization is ANAD, National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (www.anad.org). This is one of my sorority's national philanthropies, and this is such a prevalent problem. These folks have fantastic resources that they are more than happy to share with your groups.

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I guess what I was asking say you have an "eating contest" or whatever for your pledges, and one of them gets sick and throws up their food as one would expect and later you found out that this person had an eating disorder that sent them to the hospital, who is responsible for this person having this episode of this disorder?

You mean if a woman had an eating disorder since she was 15 and participated in this sort of contest? The sorority could be held responsible for that incident, but they couldn't be held responsible for her whole eating disorder, especially if it's documented that she had it previously. On the other hand anyone who eats too much too fast will puke, eating disorder or not.

It would be the same deal if a diabetic went to a restaurant and ate something and had an insulin reaction. You can't blame the restaurant for causing the diabetes but if the food was mislabeled in its presentation (i.e. said it was sugar free & wasn't) the restaurant could be held responsible.

Is this in the ballpark of what you're asking?

Or are you saying...what if a girl develops anorexia as a result of feeling that she needs to fit in and be attractive? Well, that's a hard one to call. Thousands of girls go through the same thing and don't develop anorexia, so who's to say what pushes someone over the edge.

Most eating disorders, especially bulimia, are as much about control as about body image. Usually the person is unhappy in other dimensions of their life.

Freudian theory applied to this suggests that it may be influenced by a negative relationship with the mother figure. I read a pretty convincing analysis about this and a lot of it could be condensed to the feeling of being generally not good enough or accepted.

Help is good thing though.

I believe 33girl hit the nail on the head with her analysis of the liability and the analogy with the restaraunt.

Often the control issues also stem from sexual abuse. A young woman (or less often, young man) can control the size of their body in a way that they cannot handle the abuse that is happening to them, or handle dealing with the abuse that is happening to them.

My question is what is an eating contest for your pledges?? If that girl got sick and had to go to the hospital, and then they realized that she had bulimia, I would say the sorority is responsible for her being sick that time, but not for the eating disorder. It may even be a good thing that you realize now what is going on. But I still don't know why anyone would have an eating contest with their pledges http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif What the heck are they eating??

I've never heard of a sorority holding an eating contest for the new members! Sounds sorta dumb, actually!!

eating contest sounds like hazing to me

As a long time sufferor/survivor of Anorexia, I would like to put on a program for my campus. How would I go about doing that? My sorority doesn't usually do campus wide programmes

ok, i have a question for everyone
everyday i work out at my school's gym
and everyday i see this girl who is like way too thin - it just doesn't look natural
she pushes herself so so hard
she runs, bikes, does the efx, stairclimber
i don't know how she has the energy to do all of this - if i was her i would collapse
sometimes i'm on he machine next to her and we usually say hi, how ar eyou doing, and plans for the weekend - nothing big, she's a member of another sorority on campus, the one thats known for the rail thin, blonds... what do i do? do i say something to her? is there anything i can do? normally girls like this don't want to hear it and i don't want to push her away...

Dewgirl, is your organization National? If so, you may want to start by talking to your Inter/national Headquarters. Many national organizations have money set aside to help sponsor these types of programs. They may be able to fly in a fantastic speaking that could address the whole Greek community. My chapter did that on my campus (different topic) and our National Foundation paid for a big portion of the expenses. Our program was pretty expensive so Panhellenic co-sponsored it with us. Talk about great PR!!! And it was very informative. Most of the NPC groups required their members to go as part of their programming. It was great!!!

Dewgirl--

Your counseling services doesn't have a program?

You may want to go to a US government website such as the National Institutes and Health http://www.nih.gov to get some information about eating disorders and programs to alleviate them. Also, Shadokat gave good information.

Summer's almost here and beach outings are often. Remember, bikini's, tankini's and all other suits is not dependent on the way one looks...

Also, men have eating disorders, too...