Anorexia, bulimia, binge-eating: They’re no longer the “exotic” afflictions they were when social worker Emily Lape began practice at UVA 20 years ago. Lape now performs several intakes per week at the Student Health Center (www.virginia.edu/sh). One out of three students who sign in, she says, seek help with an eating disorder.
While some find a support group meets their needs, others face a serious and prolonged struggle, like “Heather,” a graduate student who prefers not to use her real name because she plans to begin a professional career in Charlottesville. It began simply enough: “When I lost weight, people complimented me,” says Heather. “I wanted that praise.” Four years ago, Heather bottomed out amid the pressure of midterms. Desperate to overcome anorexia, she checked into the emergency room, only to be told there was no one there who treated eating disorders.
Through the Student Health Center, Heather began receiving 2.5 hours of counseling and nutritional advice each week, but she needed more. Recently, she returned from a six-week stay at Florida’s Renfrew Center (www.renfrewcenter.com), an in-patient facility that treats eating disorders. The intensive structure was transformative, she says. “I just couldn’t do it on my own.”
Heather is hardly alone. In an eating disorders group run by Lape last year, half the participants wound up requiring in-patient treatment. Other dismal statistics from the Student Health Center show that eating disorders kept pace with alcohol-related problems among female students in 2006.
“Now they have a little bit better situation at UVA,” says Heather, acknowledging greater efforts by the Center for Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) (www.virginia.edu/sh/caps), the Ainsworth Psychological Clinic (www.virginia.edu/~psych/ainsworth), and the outreach committee UVA CARES (www.virginia.edu/~uvacares). Still, counseling on campus is short-term (six to eight sessions), and Heather believes that there’s a dearth of awareness about the problem. “I think you can prevent eating disorders—but I don’t think you can treat them at UVA.”
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