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Dec 11

TEEN BEAT: Anorexia and Self-harm: The epidemics that schools are too afraid to address – Wicked Local Topsfield

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Have you ever wanted to help somebody who resisted your help? Have you ever felt completely helpless and powerless against something that was slowly, menacingly draining the life out of either you, a loved one, or a friend?

I have.

For the past several years, I have watched some of my closest peers suffer from either anorexia, a form of self-harm known as cutting, or both. These are conditions which are surprisingly common amongst teenagers and yet rarely discussed in school if ever.

This past October, my former middle school held its first ever Wellness Fair to educate students and their families on the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The school had 29 exhibitors promoting nutrition, mindfulness, and fitness, and one exhibitor Samaritans providing information on suicide prevention.

While I commend the school for addressing teenage suicide, I found it extremely disheartening that not one booth addressed eating disorders or self-harm conditions that demand just as much attention as teenage suicide.

Yet, its not just the Wellness Fair that failed to address these issues its also the schools. Yes, schools talk about nutrition and warn students about the dangers of obesity yet they never touch upon the life threatening complications caused by eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia.

Yes, schools talk about the importance of physical fitness and exercise yet they never cover the dire health consequences of exercise compulsion (also known as exercise bulimia or anorexia athletica), which is characterized by excessive and/or compulsive exercising to burn fat and calories.

And yes, schools alert students about the negative repercussions of vaping and consuming alcohol and drugs but they never once discuss the dangers of self-harm. This needs to change.

Many educators, parents, and students alike dont understand the severity of eating disorders, but eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness including depression with a person dying every 62 minutes.

According to the Foundation for Research and Education in Eating Disorders (FREED), 50 percent of teenage girls engage in unhealthy weight management behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, excessive exercising, smoking cigarettes, and using laxatives. Thats half of all teenage girls in the country.

By failing to address eating disorders and opting, instead, to focus on the consequences of being overweight, schools are inadvertently sending a faulty and downright harmful message to self conscious, impressionable adolescents that being thin at any cost means being healthy.

As Lynn Grefe, president of the National Eating Disorders Association in New York, points out, Kids are more afraid of being fat than they are of war and terrorism, so unless otherwise instructed they will engage in unhealthy, dangerous methods to lower their body weight.

Teenagers often assume that it is better to starve themselves and be underweight than risk being overweight, yet for females, ages 15-24, the mortality rate associated with anorexia is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL other causes of death in that age group combined.

Furthermore, a study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders found that 18-20 percent of anorexia patients die within twenty years of developing an eating disorder and only 30-40 percent ever fully recover.

Just as critical and disturbing? The statistics on self-harm amongst teenagers.

More teenagers than ever before are turning to self harm, which includes intentionally damaging or injuring ones body by cutting, burning, hair-pulling and self-poisoning, as a way to cope with stress, anxiety, and/or depression.

It is easy to assume that only a handful of students harm themselves and that students who self-harm have the intention of taking their life, but in actuality, 1 in 4 teen girls and 1 in 10 teen boys harm themselves annually without suicidal intentions, accounting for 20 percent of teenagers nationwide. According to these estimates, there are around 142 girls and 57 boys in my high school - which has approximately 570 students who harm themselves.

Many people treat eating disorders and self-harm as separate entities, but psychologists have recently discovered a link between eating disorders and self-harm. A study from John Hopkins University found that 35 percent of individuals struggling from anorexia engage in self-harm.

Whats more, the study also found that 50 percent of self-mutilators have a history of either anorexia or bulimia.

These are staggering statistics, and students need to know them. It is therefore imperative that schools stop seeing self harm and anorexia as taboo topics and start embracing universal prevention programs.

Several school administrators and teachers have claimed that such programs would put harmful ideas into students heads and lead to an increase in self-harm and eating-disorder behavior, but research has shown otherwise.

Stephanie Haines, a prevention education specialist at Walden Center For Education and Research, counters, The biggest harm any of us can do...is stay silent. Mental health conditions warrant honest and sometimes uncomfortable conversations. But these discussions help.

Its time that schools stop running away from sensitive topics and educate their students about the very real dangers of these conditions. There are many renowned prevention programs that can help programs like the FREED program for eating disorder prevention and the S.A.F.E alternatives program for self-harm prevention.

These programs offer advice and resources from experts who know exactly how educators can broach these subjects with their students. Schools can even opt to have members of these programs come and speak directly to their students.

The FREED program, for example, has made presentations to over 5,500 middle schools and high schools.

The goal of school administrators shouldnt merely be to educate students; it should also be to keep them safe. Schools have an opportunity to make a real difference in their students lives by implementing these prevention programs into their health class curriculum and adding eating-disorder and self-harm exhibits into their next Wellness Fair.

Now is the time for schools to address these issues before it is too late.

If you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder or from some form of self harm, please know that you are not alone. Help is just a phone call away. Numerous organizations and hotlines offer anonymous help in the form of emotional support, advice, and referrals. Please call, because you matter.

If you are struggling, you can reach out to these hotlines:

National Eating Disorders Association Helpline: call 1-800-931-2237 or text NEDA to 741741 for support, information, or referrals

Something Fishy: 1-866-418-1207 (offers treatment referrals, provides information about eating disorders, and has an online chat group where people can connect with others who are struggling with an eating disorders)

Hopeline Network: 1-800-442-4673 (offers support and guidance if you have an eating disorder and are considering harming yourself)

Emma Sullivan is a student at Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School.

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TEEN BEAT: Anorexia and Self-harm: The epidemics that schools are too afraid to address - Wicked Local Topsfield

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