We’re told from a young age that you can only be beautiful if you look a certain way,” said Emma — a Palo Alto High School student with anorexia whose name has been changed to respect her privacy. “If you just start dieting, some people get addicted to essentially the feeling of being hungry and losing weight and it’s something that you can’t stop.”
According to recent data from the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention, there has been a large uptick in hospitalizations in 2022 due to eating disorders. The prevalence of these eating disorders is present here in Palo Alto; a 2022 opt-in survey conducted by Verde of 226 Palo Alto High School students found that 22.6% of respondents said they have an eating disorder.
Emma has dealt with her eating disorder for two years, and largely credits her diagnosis to body image pressures placed on her by dance.
“I felt like I didn’t really meet the standards of what somebody my age ideally would look like,” Emma said. “There’s so much pressure that dance studios and teachers put on dancers to look a certain way. We’re told from a young age that you can only be beautiful if you look a certain way.”
For Emma, these pressures were further exacerbated by images and videos on social media, especially during the recovery portion of an eating disorder.
“It has been hard to recover in a world where we’re constantly surrounded by these people who like to edit their images in order to look perfect,” Emma said. “There are these people who post what they eat in a day and they’re clearly not eating enough.”
“I felt like I didn’t really meet the standards of what somebody my age ideally would look like. There’s so much pressure that dance studios and teachers put on dancers to look a certain way. We’re told from a young age that you can only be beautiful if you look a certain way.”
— Emma, student
Janice Bremis, who founded and works as executive director for the Eating Disorder Research Center, has witnessed the same phenomenon as Emma both in her personal life and with the people she works with.
“There’s this whole glorification of a body type that doesn’t even really exist in real life,” Bremis said. “[Content] creators are portraying their bodies as a natural body type when it really isn’t. I see people all the time striving to get that perfect body, and it’s so toxic because that ideal body type does not exist [naturally].”
Emma said that COVID-19, and the subsequent quarantine period, only worsened this glorification on social media — as creators often used the pandemic to justify an increase in fitness rhetoric.
“There was all this information going around about like, ‘Oh, how to avoid the Quarantine-15’ and everybody was doing these small eating workouts,” Emma said. “There was this culture of ‘Oh because we’re at home, we’re all going to get fat and look awful,’ so you need to start doing something to compensate. And it was in that kind of environment that my eating disorder worsened.”
In addition to external pressures, being isolated for long periods of time may also contribute to worsening disordered eating.
“A lack of social connection can be really bad,” Paly AP Psychology teacher Christopher Farina said. “And so that may be a stressor that then feeds into the development of an eating disorder”
“There’s this whole glorification of a body type that doesn’t even really exist in real life. [Content] creators are portraying their bodies as a natural body type when it really isn’t. I see people all the time striving to get that perfect body, and it’s so toxic because that ideal body type does not exist [naturally].”
— Janice Bremis, Eating Disorders Resource Center
But while alleviating students from this isolation may not be a feasible response, addressing the harmful consequences of social media is a viable solution.
Bremis and her organization have started a social media campaign to combat misinformation led by high school students like Lynbrook High School junior Sahana Nayak. Nayak and her constituents are working to mitigate the controllable effects of body image misinformation on social media through education and campaigning.
They have called for increased monitoring of material on social media websites, as well as platforms to take accountability for the harms they have spread.
“We’ve been campaigning that they need to take some responsibility,” Nayak said. “Obviously, they can’t fix everything. But, I think they need to take some kind of action. There are a lot of celebrities and influencers who do promotions with weight loss pills which are definitely part of the problem. Companies can start by just blocking certain promotions that promote unhealthy living.”
Along with companies taking action, Emma said she believes there are certain behaviors people can practice to best support those with eating disorders.
“A lack of social connection can be really bad. And so that may be a stressor that then feeds into the development of an eating disorder”
— Christopher Farina, AP Psychology teacher
“I think a big thing is just not commenting on someone else’s body,” Emma said. “All of those seemingly harmless comments play into this diet culture of ‘You don’t deserve to eat this.’ I think we should also focus on just increasing awareness about the signs of an eating disorder and how to help those who actually have them.”
One way to avoid making hurtful comments is using ‘person-centered language’ in conversations. In his AP Psychology class, Farina teaches this method to help in the recovery process as it aims to separate people from their disorders.
“It is important to be conscientious of psychological disorders and not joke around about them,” Farina said. “People often throw around ‘Oh, you’re so OCD,’ which kind of makes it casual, but also there are people that really, really struggle with that and that’s a big issue for them. We [in AP Psychology] talk about using person-centered language, so rather than saying ‘somebody is obsessive compulsive’, ‘saying that they are a person with OCD.”’
Bremis said she and her team will continue to work on combating the causes and effects of eating disorders, and hope that their message will reach people of all ages.
“It’s important for doctors and families to start screening better for eating disorders because right now there is very little coverage available,” Bremis said. “If by the end of my career, I have helped and improved the treatment of eating disorders and reduced suffering by even 1%, I will be incredibly happy.”
Eating disorders at Paly
Verde collected statistics on the prevalence of eating disorders in Paly students’ lives. Data presented is from an opt-in survey by Verde Magazine of 236 Palo Alto High School students and was collected from March 18 to March 22, 2022, through a digital form published on Schoology pages and Verde social media. Responses were anonymous and all questions were optional. Graphics: Yash Shetty
Below is a collection of resources for issues with eating disorders.
Santa Clara County Emergency Psychiatric Services
- Open 24/7
- Offers involuntary psychiatric hold services, referrals to hospitals and transition programs for day-to-day life.
- (408) 885-6100
- 871 Enborg Lane, San Jose, CA 95128
Santa Clara County Mental Health Urgent Care
- Open for general care: Monday-Sunday 8 a.m.–7 p.m.
- Open for emergency psychiatric care: Monday-Sunday 7 p.m.–8 a.m.
- Offers voluntary, walk-in services, psychiatric evaluation, consultations with experts and referrals.
- (408) 885-7855
- 871 Enborg Court, Unit 100, San Jose, CA 95128
National Eating Disorder Hotline
- Free support is offered Monday—Thursday 8 a.m.–6 p.m. PT; Friday 8 a.m.–2 p.m. PT.
- (800) 931-2237
- https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/help-support/contact-helpline
Signs of Eating Disorders
Paly Wellness Center
Eating Disorders Research Center
- Support groups, hotlines and treatment options.
- https://edrcsv.org/