News Archives - 2009
Make peace with your body
Do you constantly worry about the weight, shape, and size of your body? Do you weigh yourself often and feel obsessed with the number on the scale? Do you ever feel out of control when you are eating? Do you feel like your identity and value is based on how you look or how much you weigh?
If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you could be dealing with "disordered eating," attitudes and behaviors that can make food, dieting, and exercise not just unhealthy but dangerous.
Augsburg's Center for Counseling and Health Promotion and the Student Feminist Collective are sponsoring "Body Peace," a series of events to raise awareness of "disordered eating" as well as issues of body image and food struggles.
It is estimated that 20 percent of college students in the U.S. deal with an eating disorder. According to Eating Disorders Awareness and Prevention, Inc., "Eating disorders are complex conditions that arise from a combination of long-standing behavioral, emotional, psychological, interpersonal, and social factors." Ultimately, people with eating disorders, or "disordered eating," use food and the control of food to cope with painful, overwhelming emotions.
"Everyone knows someone who struggles in this area," said Beth Carlson, a counselor at the Center for Counseling and Health Promotion. She reminds that eating disorders affect men and women from diverse cultural backgrounds and that "disordered eating" includes anorexia and bulimia as well as obsession with eating, food, exercise, and body image that can interfere with one's life.
Carlson encourages students, staff, and faculty to attend the Tuesday evening lecture on normal eating by Sarah Schneeweis, a dietician from a Twin Cities eating disorders treatment center. "This is not about finding the right way to eat," Carlson said, "but about learning how to change your relationship with food." She added that the talk will focus on helping people to rediscover their body's innate hunger cues, something most of us know as children but often lose track of as we listen to messages "out there" in the media instead of the messages "in here" in our own bodies.
The week-long events will benefit people who cope with all types of food struggles and those who want to learn how to support friends and family. In addition to the Tuesday night talk, CCHP will sponsor an eating disorder screening on Thursday and a film on eating disorder recovery at noon on Friday, as well as informational tables in Christensen Center. The Augsburg bookstore will also feature books on topics such as emotional eating, recovery from eating disorders, and body image.
Schedule of events
Films and Lectures
Friday, Feb. 27, "Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising's Images of Women" film screening. 3:30-4:30 p.m., Women's Resource Center, Sverdrup 207
Tuesday, Mar. 3, "Rediscovering Normal Eating: Your Genes Do Fit" presentation by Sarah Schneeweis, a registered dietitian from the Park Nicollet Melrose Institute. 7-8 p.m., Marshall Room, Christensen Center
Friday, Mar. 6, "Starved" documentary about five women and their recovery from disordered eating followed by Q&A with Beth Carlson, CCHP. 12 noon-1 p.m., Century Room, Christensen Center
Eating Disorder Screening
Thursday, Mar. 5, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Drop in to CCHP for a free 20-minute screening, meet face-to-face with a counselor to discuss the results, learn about treatment resources. Assessment can also be taken online at www.augsburg.edu/cchp/screenings.html
Tabling in Christensen Center, 11 a.m.- 1 p.m.
Monday, Mar. 2, Friends don't let friends fat talk
Tuesday, Mar. 3, Healthy weight management and nutrition
Wednesday and Thursday, Mar. 4-5, How's your relationship with food?
