Old Westbury's DEAL Club Honors Eating Disorder Awareness Week

On February 29, the SUNY Old Westbury Disability Education for Awareness and Leadership club (DEAL) held their weekly club meeting in the New Academic Building (NAB) during common hour. The meeting shed light on “National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, which is an annual campaign to educate people about eating disorders. 

A student named Jeimy Colocho began the meeting with a presentation explaining the different types of eating disorders and how they impact people. Colocho said that the most common types of eating disorders are anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, and Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). 

Anne the club’s treasurer opened up the discussion by talking about her personal experience with ARFID. Anne explained that people with ARFID have trouble eating food that isn’t their preferred food. Anne explained that she won’t eat unless it’s her “favorite food.” Coupled with her autism diagnosis, her symptoms are heightened. 

There isn’t one cause of an eating disorder, but society can play a major role. Students at the meeting pointed out how there’s a lot of emphasis on how people look rather than how they feel on the inside. The group discussed how society emphasizes the importance of beauty because “looks are a reflection of health.” People, especially young women, used to look at celebrities or models in magazines for reference on what to look like. Today, with the rise of social media, young people have even more access to compare themselves to celebrities. 

A student named Billy Armour said a lot of people look at social media influencers or celebrities and question why they can’t look like them or have their body. “It’s not a natural, achievable body a lot of the time,” Armour said. He explained that a lot of the celebrities that people compare themselves to have access to plastic surgery, injections, makeup artists, and high quality healthy foods.

Anne also mentioned that eating disorders look differently on everybody. Eating disorders are often recognized in women, but not men. A lot of athletes develop eating disorders as well, mostly women, but men are also at risk. In weight class sports such as wrestling and aesthetic sports like bodybuilding, men are highly susceptible to developing eating disorders. In high school wrestling, it’s normalized and required of young boys to bulk and then restrict calories to fit a certain weight class. 

Anne explained that if men and boys are able to recognize these disordered eating habits, they may feel uncomfortable speaking to someone about their issues. She said, a lot of men are isolated from speaking about their issues for fear of being perceived as weak.This allows men to stay in unhealthy eating cycles longer than women. 

Anne’s hope for the discussion was for people to learn more about eating disorders and clear up any misconceptions surrounding them. She wanted people to know that “eating is a right, not a privilege.”