A Reflection That’s Not So Accurate

Kati Snively wakes up every morning and instantly checks her phone. She checks her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. She continues to do this throughout the entire day until she goes to bed. Everyday, Snively is exposed to thousands of advertisements, sometimes without even realizing it, which show women with unrealistic body types. Not only that, but she is also surrounded by a community of healthy, fit students who also seem to have the “perfect” bodies.

According to the National Association of Anorexia and Associated Disorders, 58 percent of women “feel pressure to be a certain weight”, and 91 percent of female college students have tried to control their weight through dieting. Eating disorders, which include anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder, are often forgotten when thinking about problems college students face. However, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate out of every mental illness.

Snively is a sophomore student at the University of Colorado Boulder and struggles with the pressure she feels to look a certain way.

“I am constantly comparing myself to other girls, and it kind of makes me feel bad honestly,” Snively stated.

Lee Scriggins, therapist at Community Health at CU, says that Boulder has a body image problem.

“We have a massive body image issue in dominate U.S. society…and we know that we have a higher prevalence of difficulties with eating and body image on our campus, we have a higher incidence of that than nationally,” Scriggins stated.

Scriggins goes on to describe how that media shows unrealistic depictions of people’s bodies, which only encourages people to value others for their appearance.

“There are a lot of opportunities to sort of scrutinize and judge each other,” Scriggins stated.

However, Scriggins feels that unlike the media, social media can have a positive impact on users.

“I don’t think social media is necessarily all bad. When people start to create a culture of saying what we like about ourselves, and being positive about our bodies and everything they can do, we can create a culture that undermines some of the bad stuff about body image. When we take it into our own hands, social media can be powerful,” Scriggins stated.

Snively disagrees with this, and feels that social media contributes to a large part of her body dissatisfaction. She constantly scrolls through her social media newsfeed and is exposed not only to her friends, but pictures of beautiful models.

“Even though people tell me I’m pretty and I’m skinny, I still can’t see it. When you look at it, it’s your own self-perception, it’s really hard,” Snively stated.

Joan Unruh is a therapist at Boulder Counseling and she also agrees with the notion that media, including social media, can be a huge contributing factor to body dissatisfaction and eating disorders.

“Eating disorders really didn’t get the attention, either they weren’t recognized or it wasn’t really as bad as it is now until the 80s, but I would even say that in the 1970s it kind of started with the popularization of television,” Unruh stated.

Unruh goes on to state that Colorado is the healthiest state in the nation, but the way people get to that place may be unhealthy.

“The bigger eating disorder is not anorexia or bulimia, it’s actually binge eating disorder, so that’s when you eat a lot of food in a short period of time, and either you may exercise it off, or it might be like bulimia if you purge in some other way, this affects both women and men,” Unruh stated.

Men are often forgotten when it comes to eating disorders because it is so common among women. Men are just as prone to eating disorders as women are, but according to ANAD, men do not seek treatment because they believe eating disorders are a woman’s disease.

“When kids go away to college, they just like go crazy with sugar and drinking and all the other things that are just part of college life, and maybe they gain some weight and they feel terrible about their body, so they start to get obsessed about it,” Unruh stated.

Body dissatisfaction and the constant need to try and look a certain way can lead to other mental issues such as depression and anxiety, causing more problems for whoever may be suffering.

“I would say depression and anxiety work with binge eating. It makes them feel good initially to binge, to numb and check out almost like drinking and doing drugs, but then once they finish the binge, they feel horrible and the cycle continues. The anxiety just builds up,” Unruh stated.

On the other hand, Scriggins feels that it is just the opposite-anxiety and depression leads to the eating disorder, not the other way around.

“It can be driven by underlying anxiety and worry, and feeling like ‘Am I good enough? Am I smart enough? Am I going to fit in?’” Scriggins stated.

Snively often has this feeling of wanting to be accepted.

“I feel a lot of pressure to go to the gym a lot, and especially being in a sorority I feel like it’s a lot of pressure because everybody is so skinny and pretty,” Snively stated.

Even though Snively knows she is healthy in all aspects, she still doesn’t believe that she is good enough. She ultimately wants something that is unattainable. According to ANAD, the body type shown in advertisements is only possessed by 5 percent of American females.

“I see other girls in my sorority complaining about how fat they are and how they need to go on a diet, but they are already so skinny, but I realize that I say the same things as them all the time,” Snively stated.

Unruh supports this position, describing how the women she helps are amazing.

“The majority of the women I see are super gorgeous, super smart, they’re like lovely, they’re friendly, but they just think that they’re disgusting,” Unruh stated.

Boulder, Colorado is known for it’s active lifestyle and healthy living, which adds even more pressure for students to live up to this reputation.

“Going out especially I notice it because our clothes are tight and we show more skin, and if you had just had a big dinner it makes you regret that and wish you didn’t eat at all,” Snively stated.

Although there is still no cure to eating disorders, there are ways to treat them. Therapy proves to be a successful treatment as well as body positive messages. Resources on campus such as the Body Project are great ways to seek treatment and improve body image.

“I know it’s hard, but I need to remind myself that I am comparing myself with Photo shopped models. I need to try an keep positive thoughts in my mind, so I can work on seeing myself positively rather than negatively,” Snively stated.