Word: bulimia
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Joan (not her real name) is a Harvard senior afflicted with a disease that is now epidemic among college students across the country--bulimia. Primarily found among achievement-oriented, obsessive, perfectionist females ranging in age from eight to 50, bulimia--Greek for "ox hunger"--is a disorder that psychiatrists and medical authorities are only beginning to understand; the American Psychiatric Association officially recognized bulimia (or bulimarexia, as it is also known) as a disease just last year...
Unlike anorexia nervosa, whose sufferers think constantly about food yet deny them-selves nourishment while exercising their bodies into a state of abnormal emaciation, bulimia often afflicts women who appear healthy, radiant and at an ideal weight. Despite their differing approaches to weight loss, however, bulimics and anorectics are alike in a number of ways. Their inflated fear of fatness, distortion of true 'body image, and extremely low self-esteem lead them to manipulate their metabolisms and turn an innate self-disgust into a dangerous attack on their own bodies...
Susan--a pretty, slender Harvard sophomore--is still plagued with occasional bouts of bulimia, although now she feels more in control of the problem than she ever has in the five years she has been afflicted with it. Like most sufferers of bulimia, Susan has made several attempts to stop gorging/purging--usually after a frightening or disappointing experience with vomiting...
Sally, a Harvard freshman who occasionally gulps handfuls of laxatives to cleanse her body of excess calories consumed during food binges, agrees. "I think Harvard is a perfect microcosm for eating disorders," she says. Afflicted with one offshoot of bulimia, Sally shuns forced vomiting ("I hate the idea of hurting myself"), and instead relies on laxative overdoses to combat overeating...
...Craig Johnson, director of the Anorexia Nervosa Center at Chicago's Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, who is heading an epidemiological study of the disorder, estimates that "up to 20% of women on college campuses are involved in some degree in bulimia and purging." A study at Ohio State University produced an even higher estimate: 30%. Johnson reports some colleges have informal groups of women who "pig out" regularly in frantic feasting...