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.
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