The Chronicle

Issue date: 3/7/08 Section: News
Last update: 3/14/08 at 1:56 AM EST

For some, spring means bikinis and body-image anxiety. But this Spring Break, some professionals will be working at Duke to alleviate such pressures. The University will host a conference entitled "Shifting Campus Cultures: Addressing Disordered Eating in Changing Academic Climates," Friday and Saturday in order to shed light on the difficulties some college students face with eating disorders. The conference, sponsored by the Duke Student Health Center, will "explore the cultural shifts in today's society and how they have impacted the diagnosis and treatment of eating disorders," according to the registration form. Experts from Duke as well as Wellesley College and the University of Kentucky are slated to speak during the weekend's events. "I am looking forward to seeing collaboration to fight back against this illness," said senior Kathryn Newman, president of ESTEEM, a subgroup of Student Health's Healthy Devils that focuses on peer education about body-image concerns. "Half of the products you see these days are geared toward trying to reduce your size," she said, adding that students do not always realize that those messages do not necessarily apply to them. "In America we are facing an obesity epidemic, but at Duke we are just not." Newman added that she was glad the conference was taking a clinical approach to the problem by gathering experts in the field. "This is how it is with all other diseases," she said. The keynote address will be given by Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education Donna Lisker, the former head of the Women's Center who spearheaded the 2003 Women's Initiative research. Lisker said her research revealed connections between the college hook-up culture and disordered eating. "It is easy to get caught in a cycle of thinking 'if only I was thinner, if only I was more attractive, I would have a boyfriend, not just hook-ups,'" she said. She said though Duke is not the only school with incidence of disordered eating, it is a high-risk environment for the problem. "Duke is a bit of a fishbowl," she said. "It is not a campus where you can easily be invisible. People see you and notice what you are wearing, whether or not you have lost weight. Students are on display." She added that in her mind, fighting disordered eating is "part of a larger project" of keeping students from wasting energy focusing on appearance when they could be pursuing other ambitions. Student health dietician Anna Lutz, Trinity '99 and a speaker at the event who works with individual cases of disordered eating, said college is a breeding ground for eating issues because of heightened academic and social pressures. "An eating disorder isn't about the food," she said. "It's a coping mechanism." Lutz added that her years as a Duke undergraduate as well as her professional work here have led her to believe that the culture of Duke poses unique stresses. "As an elite institution, the students who choose to come here often have personalities that put them at risk for eating disorders," she said. "Inside the Duke walls many ideals and pressures can be heightened."

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