Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 12, 1987)
Thursday, March 12, 1987/The Battalion/Page 3 State and Local norexia, bulimia can be deadly Eating disorders harmful to health By Suna Purser Reporter Hair loss, malnutrition, severe dental problems and — in ex treme cases — death are some of lie effects of the eating disorders . Inorexia nervosa and bulimia, thei- pys Steve Liter, director of social ervices at Greenleaf Psychiatric Hospital. I “1 recently treated a woman rnai '4 vho weighed 79 pounds and had o be fed intravenously,” he says. She had an extreme case of ano- ism i Dr. Kathleen Huston, director [df Greenleafs adult unit, said norexics starve themselves to an xtreme degree. “In its purest form, anorexics literally starve thefnselves to death,” Huston says. “They have a misperception about their bod ies. They look in a mirror and hink they’re still overweight. “There is no logic or rationale n their thinking.” Diagnostically, people must |ose 25 percent of their body eight to be considered anorex- cs, Huston says, but cases rarely et that extreme. Still, anorexia and bulimia exist In varying degrees in all age groups. Anorexics and bulimics range n age from 12 to 50 and about 95 percent are women, Liter says. But this doesn’t mean men don’t have eating disorders. “A colleague of mine in Hous ton is treating a 13-year-old boy For anorexia,” he said. "Older males who have anorexia are usually models or dancers and are more readily able to conceal he fact that they have an eating disorder.” While males may develop ano rexia, it tends to be more typical in adolescent females who have a mild form of the disorder, Hus ton said. Debbie Rabinowitz, a counselor at Texas A&M’s Student Counsel ing Services, said the length of fasting depends on the severity of the patient’s eating disorder. “Many people can go for a week without eating and just drink water the entire time,” she said. “But I suspect that some can go much longer than a week.” Rabinowitz said the counseling service rarely encounters an ex treme anorexic. “Occasionally we have a person with a severe eating disorder come in, but not often,” she said. dergo. Others are urged by fam ily or friends to get help. Unlike anorexics, bulimics of ten realize they have a problem and are more likely to seek help, Liter said. Bulimia is an eating disorder in which people binge and purge, he said. “Bulimics will buy a box of doughnuts, a pie and a loaf of bread, and eat it all at one time,” he said. “They eat things that go “You can tell them they’re going to starve to death, literally, if they don’t get medical attention. They will respond by saying ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. . . . Yet you know there’s a problem because you can look at them and see their skeletal structure. ” — Steve Liter, Greenleaf Psychiatric Hospital social services director “We treated one last year we were very concerned about.” Rabinowitz agreed with Hus ton about an anorexic’s self- image. “They have a very distorted image of their bodies,” she said. “No matter how much weight they lose, they always think they need to lose more.” Liter said anorexics have a high denial rate, a clinical term used to describe their inability or refusal to admit there is a prob lem. “You can tell them they’re going to starve to death, literally, if they don’t get medical atten tion,” he said. “They will respond by saying ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. You’re crazy, I’m fine.’ Yet you know there’s a problem because you can look at them and see their skeletal structure.” Anorexics rarely seek help on their own, Huston said. Many are referred by physicians or gyneco logists who know the patient’s health history and notice the physical changes anorexics un down easily, digest easily and come up easily.” Bulimics eat foods that are eas ily digested and high in calories. Binge foods include ice cream, cookies and candy, he said. After binging, bulimics will purge themselves. Purging may be accomplished by taking laxa tives (10 to 30 a day), doing ca thartic exercises (150 sit-ups or running five miles), taking di uretics or vomiting, Liter said. “Ninety-five percent of bulim ics will vomit,” he said. “They get so adapted to throwing up that most of them can do it at will.” Bulimics often have severe dental problems because of vom iting, Huston said. The stomach’s gastric acid is brought up when bulimics vomit. The acid eats through the enamel of their teeth. Bulimics also create an electro lyte imbalance in their bodies, Liter said. “We have certain chemicals of amounts in our bodies,” he ying ai said. “ There is a homeostasis maintained by electrolytes. Buli mia disrupts that balance by de stroying electrolytes.” Besides creating dental prob lems and chemical imbalances, in extreme cases, bulimia may result in cardiac arrest. Bulimia cases outnumber ano rexia cases by a 10-to-l margin, Liter said. Rabinowitz agreed, saying the counseling service sees more bu limics than anorexics. “We are running two groups of eight each right now,” Rabinowitz said. “Primarily, they are bulim ics. Bulimics are more aware that they have a problem and are more willing to do something about it. They are usually self-re ferred. “Anorexics have a higher de nial rate and don’t really feel that they have a problem,” she said. Liter said people develop eat ing disorders for many reasons. “There is great pressure in our culture to be accepted, to look like a model and to be attractive to males,” he said. “The feeling of control is also important. “Many people with eating dis orders feel as if they have no con trol in their lives. For example, there is a feeling of T can’t con trol the grades I make, but I can control what goes into my body and how I look,’ ” he said. Sometimes there is family pres sure, Huston said. Parents pres sure their children to achieve and the children may use an eating disorder as a form of rebellion. Anorexia, in particular, may be the result of a power struggle be tween parent and child, she said. Refusal to eat becomes the child’s control over parental authority. Greenleaf Psychiatric Hospital and the Student Counseling Serv ices offer programs to help ano rexics and bulimics overcome their problems. The programs stress the im portance of gaining constructive control in life and handling social relationships effectively. Student Senate votes to create committee By Christi Daugherty Staff Writer Calling the Student Government’s actual power extremely limited, the Student Senate voted Wednesday to create a committee to study the pos sibility of placing a student on the Texas A&M Board of Regents. The bill calls for an ad-hoc com mittee, with members appointed by the speaker of the Senate, to study the situation for two years. It gives the committee the power to work in cooperation with the Legislative Study Group to lobby in Austin and within the A&M administration on behalf of the Senate. If a student seat were to be cre ated, the bill would make it a voting seat elected by the student body. Jerry Rosiek, author of the bill, said, “I think it’s very important we make this an elected position, be cause if they were appointed they’d become brown-nosers really fast.” Though such a seat is not uncom mon in other states, Rosiek said that in Texas there are currently no stu dents or faculty members on any university’s board of regents. “There are 85 schools in the United States with students on their boards of regents,” Rosiek said. “There are 60 with voting students on their boards, 35 which elect stu dents to the boards and 19 which elect voting students to their boards. “Basically, it’s obvious that the numbers go down the more power the seat has.” The bill also suggests that the committee study the idea of creating a faculty seat on the board. The Senate also passed a bill cre ating an ad-hoc committee to study aesthetic improvements at Texas A&M. The bill called the quality of the aesthetic environment at the A&M campus “less than it could be” and suggested that improvements be made in such areas as the quality of the architecture and landscaping, the number of art exhibits, classical music performances and stage pro ductions brought to the campus. Rosiek, the bill’s author, intro duced as a guest speaker Dr. John McDermott, department head of hu manities in medicine and distin guished philosophy professor at A&M, to discuss the issue before the Senate. McDermott defined for the Sen ate the difference between aesthetic and anaesthetic by using examples of on-campus architecture. “Standing next to Zachry is an anaesthetic experience,” McDermott said. “It is a building of absolutely no architectural beauty. It could have been designed by me.” As an aesthetic experience he sug- ested Senate members look at coates Hall, “with its lovely metal work done by hand,” or the Animal Industries building, or the old Ghemistry Building. “The aesthetic is different from the anaesthetic — not because I like it and you don’t — but because of the sophistication of it,” McDermott said. Standing in the foyer of the Sys tem Administration Building and looking out over what he called “un questionably the most impressive en trance to any campus I’ve ever seen,” is an aesthetic experience, McDer mott said. “We have the chance to build something here that is absolutely spectacular,”he said. “But 10 more years of that crap (Zachry and the Halbouty Geosciences Building) and it’s too late. “If you do it (the committee) right, in 10 years they won’t build a mousetrap on campus without asking you first.” In other action, the Senate passed a strict absence bill which removes from their positions any senators who miss more two or more meet ings in a semester. The Senate has discussed its ab sence problem at almost every meet ing this semester, but this is the first bill passed combating the problem. ’s 'SS ih. was Catch The Rays This Spring Break! F 0- Post Oak Mall 746-9009 Mon-Sat 10:00-9:00 Sun 12:30-5:30