By: Whitney Klahom - WGEN Contributor

The prevalence of eating disorders is growing, says Melissa Kimber, a Postdoctoral Fellow working in McMaster’s Offord Centre for Child Studies. The elevated frequency of conditions like disordered eating and body dysphoria stems from many factors including, but not limited to, social pressures to conform to unattainable beauty ideals.

Despite the popular stereotype of eating disorders as an affliction for adolescent girls, young adults, particularly students, can and do suffer from them as well. The Freshman 15 and the fear of it can provoke anxiety among university students that adds to general societal pressures regarding body image.

The Queen’s University student newspaper has previously reported that 51 per cent of students at Canadian universities engage in binge eating, and bulimia incidence among female students at postsecondary institutions is around two per cent. That’s comparable to the national average, which Statistics Canada puts at one to three per cent.

At McMaster, the resources are there to seek support, like counselling services and support groups through the Wellness Centre. Off campus, Hamilton’s Body Brave offers workshops and clinical support around combatting eating disorders and body image issues, and St. Joseph’s Healthcare has an inpatient eating disorder clinic for more prolonged support.

Despite the community resources available, the stigma surrounding eating disorders can be a significant barrier to accessing these supports.

Let's all try to be fearless about our discussions of eating disorders like her while accessing and spreading knowledge about the resources available in Hamilton and McMaster.

That’s where Sophie Grégoire Trudeau comes in. She is seemingly tireless, continually advocating for and volunteering with charities across Canada that are related to the broad, multivalent issue of women’s rights. Both her charitable advocacy for eating disorder awareness and her uncompromising honesty regarding her past struggles with bulimia make her someone university students can and should hold in high esteem.

She’s talked about suffering from bulimia as a teenager since 2006 when she was still the Quebec correspondent for eTalk, and she’s been consistently open about that part of her past ever since. In 2013, she spoke on the matter at a fundraiser for Toronto-based eating disorder support centre, Sheena’s Place.

Just recently, she gave a similar speech on Parliament Hill during Eating Disorders Awareness Week. She’s worked with the Baca Clinic and the Bulimia Anorexia Nervosa Association to raise further awareness of eating disorders. She has helped advocate for healthy living with organizations like FitSpirit and Fillactive. A notable amount of her charity work, particularly for Plan Canada and Fillactive, is on a volunteer basis.

She, for her part, has consistently put her money where her mouth is for over a decade, and her honesty regarding this crucial issue holds some valuable lessons for university students.

We may not have as much free time as Ms. Trudeau has to dedicate to charities, though we can and should certainly try, but we can always be honest with ourselves and others about body image issues and eating disorders. We can always be the ones to break the silence, to have those awkward conversations and to say enough is enough. Her efforts in nationally reducing the stigma surrounding eating disorders should be a source of inspiration for McMaster students.

Let’s all try to be fearless about our discussions of eating disorders like her while accessing and spreading knowledge about the resources available in Hamilton and McMaster. We should continue to support and normalize conversations around these experiences, so others may feel safe getting the help they need.

By: Miranda Babbitt

Currently slouched in my dorm’s wannabe rocking chair, I see the remnants of a KitKat bar and bag of chips while a bowl of fruit sits abandoned behind my laptop’s screen. Let’s be honest, nobody eats like a normal human being during Frosh Week. This is the essence of what every girl or boy fears when entering university. Even with the mere word, “freshman”, a certain number slyly creeps next to it, waiting on the tip of your tongue. “Fifteen, fifteen, fifteen.” As soon as I utter these two words, “Freshman Fifteen,” the eyes of adolescents nearby darken in sheer, unadulterated dread and horror.

Especially us girls do not take these apparently inevitable extra pounds lightly (pardon the pun). It often seems a pact to try and avoid it. Plastered across some of the athletic clubs posters in the booths during Mac Clubsfest was one of their most powerful incentives: “Avoid the Freshman Fifteen!” Just down my hall, one of my friends has devoted herself entirely to rowing, a sport she hasn’t ever dabbled in until she saw those words, her savior, to avoiding the terror of gaining fifteen extra pounds.

Others yet, (maybe including myself, maybe not) have adopted a sort of “YOLO” or should I say, “YOFO”, attitude towards it all. The rows upon aisles of not-exactly-the-healthiest options conveniently placed by the cashiers are a source of my quick surrender into Freshman Fifteen’s rich, salty goodness. Clever move, Centro, clever move.

However, my fellow Mac Students, I believe the Freshman Fifteen is a myth. Now you may have heard this before, and brushed it aside in favour of the worry-induced adrenaline. But it is imperative to know that honestly, you can escape it pretty easily because the Freshman Fifteen is in fact the Freshman Five.

There. Breathe. Put down those running shoes you had for the third workout of the day. Finish that bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Pat your wheezing friend on the back. We’re not joining the army, folks. We are not actually in a metaphorical war with our raging hormones and metabolisms in the face of our freshman year. We’re exploring the next stage of our lives where every meal hasn’t been planned and made by mummy for when you get home from school.

And how do I know this is so? Science. Studies galore. If you even type freshman fifteen into the all-knowing mother of technology known as Google, you will find “myth” and “exaggeration,” belittling those menacing words.

Despite its apparent exaggerations, I took it upon myself to scour the Internet for some tips to avoid the said Freshman Five all together. And no, it’s not going to be as mind-numbingly simple as saying, “Well, just eat a salad,” because hey, smartass, sometimes I’m going to want a burger. Maybe even a double bacon cheeseburger. You can glare at me all you want, eyes throwing daggers over that bowl of cottage cheese and celery, but I’m not going to adopt the diet of a bunny rabbit to keep off extra weight (as cute as bunnies are). Here are some reasonable, achievable tips:

1. Start your routine as soon as possible and stick to it for two weeks without faltering. As soon as daily jogs or elliptical-machines are in your routine, you will – gasp – crave exercise.
2. Don’t leave for class without a breakfast! And a medium coffee from Tim’s doesn’t count. Your metabolism is most likely a lazy fellow, and he’s going to stay in his peaceful little slumber until you kickstart him with some nutrients. Think fruit plates from the salad bar, granola bars, or even whole grain waffles you can slip in your common room’s microwave before class, topped with decadent Greek yogurt.
3. Make your meals look like a rainbow. No, that doesn’t mean a pizza with black olives and brown mushrooms. Choose something with veggies of all colours, protein in the form of chicken or ham, and some calcium from white or chocolate milk.
4. Join something. Anything. It can be as specific as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (who knew?) or Beginner Yoga. Something along the lines of Zumba seems to be the craze lately. Try it out.

To get down to the gritty, the freshman fifteen really is just psychological. The campus is not forcing food down your throat, nor is the gym glaring at you every time you walk by it. And hey, bikini season’s over. It’s sexy winter parka time.

You may not know it right now, but I guarantee that the eight short months that lie ahead of you in residence will be the most exciting, bizarre, confusing, whirlwind months of your sweet young life. You’re probably entering into it with a long list of expectations and cautionary tales of what you want to happen (make friends, get laid) and what you want to avoid (fail out, never get laid). The advice you’ll have heard most is, “make the most of your first year,” and it’s true. But “making the most of it” is not usually defined by the advice I’m about to give. I’m about to tell you to do the opposite of what you’d assume, and I mean it with every fiber of my nostalgic, upper-year being.

Gain the ‘Freshman 15’

No, seriously. Get hefty. Never again will you have such endless pre-paid, pre-cooked meal options at your fingertips. Embrace it with a full heart and a ready stomach. Yes, soon the photo on your student card will seem to glare at you with disapproval as you purchase yet another buffalo chicken wrap with extra cheese, flaunting how thin your face used to look. It will become hard to remember a time when your cheekbones were that prominent. Power through and keep eating. The weight will fall off in the summer, and come next September, you’ll resent all the first-years with their crisp new student cards and mourn the days when that fourth slice of pizza was just a swipe away.

Commit floorcest

Ok, I admit, this can get a little messy. It’s with your best interests in mind that your CA, your friends and every first-year survival handbook out there warns against getting romantically – or, let’s face it, just sexually – entangled with your next-door neighbours. There is nothing more awkward than having to live the next eight months on the same floor as a jilted, hormonal teen whose heart you may have just broken after a drunken, Welcome Week hookup. This is not the scenario I’m encouraging. Rather, when months have passed, friendships have comfortably settled on your floor in residence and you’re still longingly eyeing that girl or guy down the hall, don’t be afraid to rock the boat. Risk jeopardizing your close, cozy but unsatisfying friendship by initiating something more. Yeah, it might turn out to be uncomfortable, but it also might end up being the greatest leap you ever took. Trust me on that one.

Don’t be besties with your roommate

This can go one of two ways: either you came to Mac with your best friend from high school and are sharing a room in residence, or you were randomly paired with a stranger who instantly becomes your best friend. While it’s comforting to have a close friend help you make the transition from high school to university, it can also be socially limiting if (or should I say when) you rely on each other too much and don’t make the effort to meet other people on your floor or in your building. I can almost guarantee you will have a pair of such high school besties – usually girls – on your floor who are reclusive, exclusive and unintentionally unfriendly. They won’t even notice how, month after month of turning down invitations to hang-out/go-out/make-out, those invitations peter out and eventually stop coming, yet they’ll be confused and hurt come second year when they realize they don’t have very many friends. It’s an easy trap. Don’t be them.

So go forth, young froshies, and make the most of the eight months that lie before you in the North or West quads. Eat that extra slice of cake at East Meets West; knock on that cute ginger guy’s door on the fourth floor of Les Prince; venture outside of your suite in Bates. Do everything I did – and more.