Thursday, February 12, 2009
ARGUMENT AND ADVOCACY EVENT - Eating Disorders Month
Feb. 18: Eating Disorders Awareness Month Speakout, 7:30-9 p.m., Room 1101, Miller Hall: Ron George and Kathleen MacDonald speak on their personal experiences with anorexia and disordered eating; George is the father of Leslie George, a former JMU student who passed away in 2000 from complications with eating disorders; MacDonald struggled with anorexia and disordered eating for nearly 20 years and has since developed a healthy spiritual, emotional and physical recovery process; for more information, contact Ann Simmons at simmonae@jmu.edu.
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I went to this event on Wednesday night. The lecture hall was full, but there were very few guys there - it was mostly females. It was a sorority-sponsored event so that could be why. Kathleen, the main speaker, opened her presentation with a slide show of women who have died from eating disorders. The slide show showed pictures of the women, their dates of birth and death, and quotes by the women or family members and friends. This was a powerful slide show, however it was difficult to be emotionally invested in a slide show of women who died who I never knew. After the presentation, Kathleen told her story. She struggled with an eating disorder for 16 years of her life, from the age of 12 to 28. During those 16 years, she was extremely depressed, suicidal, wrecked her credit, ruined ties with her family, and was unable to focus on anything. She tried many times to recover, but the disease had a strong psychological hold on her. It wasn't until she was invited to speak in front of Congress about eating disorder victims' health insurance rights that she realized she needed to beat this disease or she was going to die. After she spoke, Leslie George's parents came up to her and hugged her and told her that they had just lost their daughter to bulimia and didn't want the same thing to happen to Kathleen. Leslie George was a member of Tri Sigma at JMU and died in 2000 after a four year battle with bulimia. Kathleen said that seeing the George's cry over the loss of their daughter really resonated with her and that she began her final recovery then, focusing on her body being beautiful because it was alive. She cried at times during this presentation and the audience could really feel the pain that this disease brought into her life. After she spoke, she invited audience members to come up to the microphone and speak. One girl read a poem by her friend about her battle with anorexia; a few others talked about their experiences with eating disorders and offered help to anyone who was struggling with them; and finally another girl talked about her mother's current struggle with anorexia and how it is taking a toll on the family. This presentation was sad and heartbreaking in a way; it was difficult to see how people's lives have been consumed by eating disorders. I am glad I went though, and I hope that the presentation resonated with every one in the audience who had ever experienced disordered eating, overexercising, or just skewed body image issues. I think that JMU should have more events like this and shed light on an epidemic that exists on our campus but is rarely discussed in a forum such as this.
I went to this event expecting it to be about the certain types of eating disorders anorexia, bulemia, etc and the signs/symptoms of those eating disorders. Rather, it was a lady name Kathleen who had anorexia nervosa and bulemia for 16 years. She opened her presentation with the images and briefs stories of girls all over who have died from have eating disorders. The descriptions of the girls are things you'd see about any one of my friends and it would mention things such as "she started her first diet at 11", which is crazy because 11 year olds shouldn't be dieting! Then Kathleen went on to tell her own story of how she always thought her mother thought of her as fat and starting skipping meals at age 12. The whole time she was depressed, never happy with her body even though people called her "skinny", suicidal, was kicked out of school, and ruined her relationship with her family adn friends. She spoke in front of Congress about eating disorders, thinking of herself as someone who had overcome it, when in fact she had not yet and it was there that she met Leslie George's parents. She said that seeing them with their tear-stained faces reminded her of her own parents and it was then taht she realized she still needed help to recover. The disease had taken a hold of not just her body, but her mind and even though she tried many times to beat it, she never fully did before meeting Leslie's parents. Now she says she loves her body and being alive because were it not for finally understanding how to overcome her disease, she too would have been dead. She ended her presentation with allowing girls to come up to the microphone and share their own experiences. I wasn't sure many girls would come up and share their own personal stories but 4-5 girls did and it was really moving because they didn't hold back. No one admitted to having a disorder currently but some said they had overcome it and another said her mom has a very serious problem with it and every one of them broke out in tears, leaving most of the audience in tears as well. It was a good experience to sit through the event because while I know eating disorders can happen, I've never experienced it myself. I learned it can happen without you realizing it can happen and it really made me appreciate my body and myself and being alive and healthy. Seeing hte effects of them (death being one of them) I left there vowing to continue on my path of EATING and not being so consumed in what I look like on the outside because it just simply doesn't matter. Kathleen said being skinny didn't get her anywhere in life and almost killed her - its just not worth it.
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