Walking into the cafeteria, a girl observes the student members selecting their food. Some migrate toward the sandwiches. Others opt for a fruit cup. The girl feels her stomach rumbling, but then notices her body in the reflection of the drink case, and suddenly her appetite subsides.
“I had a big breakfast,” she tells her friends. After the period is over, the girl goes to the bathroom, looks at her reflection again and is overwhelmed by her self-labeled “fat” body. She goes the rest of the day without eating.
These occurrences are not uncommon for teens with eating disorders. According to the South Carolina Department of Mental Health, one in 100 women suffer from anorexia, and two to three in 100 women suffer from bulimia. Anorexia refers to those who fast or eat minimal portions to lose weight, and bulimia is an eating disorder in which people make themselves vomit to lose weight.
Sophomore Lindsey Zelvin suffered from an eating disorder but is recovering and returned to school April 6 from a two-and-a-half month stay at Rogers Memorial Hospital, a residential treatment center.
“I had a setback,” Zelvin said. “It’s going to take a while to recover from it, but it’s not impossible. The setbacks you have and the mistakes you make don’t define you. It’s how you get back up. And I will get back up.”
Zelvin believes this treatment saved her life and has now started a club at South called Speak Out for Awareness (SOFA). SOFA aims to raise awareness for eating and mental health disorders.
“My most important goal is to make sure kids have a safe place to go,” Zelvin said. “I got so many responses from Facebook messages like, ‘I went through [an eating disorder] junior year’, ‘I went through it freshman year’, ‘I went through it when I was in eighth grade’. These people never had anywhere to go. I want them to know they have someone to talk to.”
According to Zelvin, her eating disorder began in eighth grade, and by freshman year, she had lost a substantial amount of weight.
“I started to eat healthier, then I started restricting [my diet], then I started over-exercising,” Zelvin said. “I got to a point where I was eating really tiny lunches so I could eat normal dinners. Then my dinners started getting small, too. At one point, I’d eat under 100 calories each day [for a week] and fast the last two days.”
Through treatment and support from her family, Zelvin has become more accepting of her body. Today, she is on a meal plan and is not allowed to know the calories of her meals. She is currently trying to get back to enjoying food without worrying about the way it may impact her body.
“Even when I was at my lowest weight, and that weight was lower than what my 13-year-old sister is now, I would look in the mirror and think my stomach [was] so fat,” Zelvin said. “But I know it [was] a distorted image. When I look in the mirror [today], I’m getting better at noticing the good parts as well as the bad. I don’t think I’m ever going to like certain parts of my body, but I’m happy with who I am.”
Unlike Zelvin, not all those who suffer from an eating disorder receive treatment. The South Carolina Department of Mental Health estimated that only 10 percent of those with an eating disorder are treated. Zelvin hopes to fundraise in partnership with the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) for those who cannot afford treatment.
“I saw many people who had to leave [Roger’s Memorial] because their insurance cut out,” Zelvin said. “I’m lucky enough that my parents could afford it, but it’s $1,000 a day, so [there are] so many people who can’t [afford it] and so many people who had to leave.”
Zelvin recalled a case in which one boy she met at Rogers had to leave, and a month later, he committed suicide. It is because of people like him, Zelvin said, that she wants to start fundraising.
“If I hadn’t gotten the help I needed, I probably would’ve died by 18,” Zelvin said. “Either by suicide or by my eating disorder.”
Zelvin believes that while some people may not have a diagnosed eating disorder, there are many young men and women who have what she calls “disordered eating”.
“It’s so dangerous,” Zelvin said. “I have friends who only eat ‘healthy foods’ and they’ll freak out when foods aren’t healthy. That’s how I started. It’s a slippery, slippery slope.”
According to Zelvin, there is no one size that makes a person beautiful.
“Focus on what you have to offer to the world because even when I was stick-thin, I wasn’t happy with myself,” Zelvin said. “I was withdrawn, angry at my parents, I didn’t speak my mind, I didn’t stand up for what I believed in, I wasn’t there for my friends, because I couldn’t be. I wasn’t me anymore.”
Zelvin stressed that an eating disorder simply isn’t worth the mental and physical strain.
“With girls who don’t like their bodies, just remember if you’re a good person, everything is going to work out,” Zelvin said. “Because you have so much more to offer the world than what you look like.”
