Eating
Disorders
Former Pageant Winner Shares Eating Disorder Experiences
(March 10, 2004) -- One out of five college women have an
eating disorder, said an advocate for
eating disorder education and prevention Wednesday night in the University
Ballroom. But friends can play a role in reducing that statistic.
Stacey Kole, former Miss Arizona and sixth-place finisher in the Miss USA
pageant in 1998, came to the University of Montana to talk about women and
eating disorders, highlighting her experience with
anorexia and how she overcame
it.
As a 16-year-old junior in high school, Kole was a perfectionist. She was on
the honor roll, represented Arizona in teen pageants, performed several hours of
community service a week and took college courses in the afternoons, so that she
could graduate from college in three years instead of four. This perfectionist
attitude drove her to anorexia, where she ate only diet shakes for breakfast and
half an apple and half a sandwich for lunch.
Now Kole is an advocate for eating disorder education and prevention and
gives talks all over the United States.
Kole said her talks are directed toward women, because 90 percent of all
people with eating disorders are women.
According to reports done by the National Institute of Mental Health, the
three main eating disorders are also
bulimia, anorexia and
binge eating. Cheryl Vandenburg, clinical psychologist at Curry Health Center, attended the speech
and said those three eating disorders are the most common at the University of
Montana. Vandenburg said some students suffer from eating disorders because they
are at vulnerable places in their lives.
“They’re on their own for the first time, and they have the emotional
vulnerability from the past that they bring with them,” Vandenburg said. “They
have to negotiate a relationship with food for the first time.”
Kole only talked about two of the most-common disorders — bulimia and
anorexia — because those are the areas in which she is most knowledgeable.
“A doctor once told me that 10 times as many women have bulimia as do
anorexia,” Kole said.
Bulimia is a disorder that causes people to
eat a very large meal and throw
it up afterwards, according to reports by NIMH.
Kole said there are five ways a person will purge themself: Vomiting is the
most common, then laxative abuse, third is diuretic abuse in which you take a
pill designed to make you lose water weight, fourth is excessive compulsive
eating, and fifth is fasting.
Signs of someone who purges can be raw knuckles, teeth erosion from stomach
acid and frequent bathroom trips after they’re done eating, Kole said.
The next most-common eating disorder is anorexia.
“Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder,” Kole
said. And Kole’s statistic was backed up by Vandenburg.
“(Anorexia) lies above
depression, anxiety disorders and
schizophrenia,” Vandenburg said.
People suffering from anorexia don’t eat very much, and when they do they eat
small meals, according to NIMH. They may also weigh their food and exercise
compulsively.
Relating back to her own experience, Kole said having a safe friend could
have helped her to recover faster.
“Eating-disorder people need people they can trust,” Kole said. “Someone they
can go to for help.”
The third most common disorder is binge-eating. Binge-eaters often eat large
meals alone and very fast, whether they’re hungry or not, according to NIMH. And
unlike the other two disorders, men and women are equally prone to having a
binge-eating disorder.
Two things helped Kole recover from anorexia: seeing a counselor when she was
16 and seeking God’s help.
In the counselor’s office, Kole started thinking back to her fourth-grade
teacher, Miss Divie, who told her students that her passion and love for life
came from a Bible verse that she had made her life’s motto.
“I have come that you might have life and have it to the full,” was the
verse, Kole said.
Kole said there’s more to eating disorders than their clinical definitions.
“Tonight we’ve talked about eating disorders, and they’re not so much about
having empty stomachs as they are so often about having empty hearts.”
Kole said she was trying to have a full life but was refusing to have any
meaningful contact with God.
“It was like I said, ‘God, I can do this on my own. I don’t need you, I can
run my own life,’” Kole said. “But the results were hurt, pain and loneliness.”
But then, Kole said, she learned that God loved her so much that he sent
Jesus Christ to be her healer — so that she could live the full life she was
always intended to live, Kole said.
Through her relationship with God, Kole has found a reason to live.
“My soul found its worth,” Kole said. “That became a reason for the first
time to live life to the full.”
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