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Oops, I skipped it again: disordered eating at Princeton

I have seen them throughout my college years. In fact, I have been one of them in the past.

College roommates, friends, voices overheard in the dining hall: “This is my first meal today,” or “I forgot to eat.”

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My mother would ask, “How could you forget something that you have to do to survive?”

But it’s more common than you’d think and less acknowledged than it should be. Disordered eating includes fasting or chronic restrained eating, skipping meals, restrictive dieting, binge eating, self-induced vomiting, unbalanced eating (i.e. restricting a major food group such as fats or carbohydrates) and using diet pills.

Although some of these are more drastic than others, it is important to note that “skipping meals” is included in this. While I can safely say that many students don’t make it out of bed in time to grab breakfast in the dining halls or eating clubs, it is incredibly important to make time between classes to have lunch. For the most part, skipping meals has less to do with wanting to appear thin than with an inability to prioritize a routine that should clearly take precedence in our lives. And while students might not take pride in skipping meals, they don’t feel compelled enough to stop this harmful practice.

To me, “forgetting to eat” should not exist. Even in the midst of a busy schedule, students should not be pushed to the point that they forget one of the basic necessities for survival.

A number of changes can help combat disordered eating at Princeton.

Firstly, classes and precepts should not be scheduled to begin between the hours of 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. When students have classes during this time, they are often faced with no other option but to skip best online casino lunch. Moving these classes to later in the day — perhaps even at 7:30 p.m. — prevents students from having to do this. While an increased number of evening classes might force students to eat dinner earlier (at around 5 or 6 p.m. — a time when they definitely would not have class), they would not have to skip lunch altogether as they currently have to if they have class at both 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Whether or not skipping meals is intentional, our class schedules should not facilitate it.

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Second, it is not enough for us to shine a light on eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia. We must address issues like disordered eating before they become larger, more sustained problems. To do this, we need to create a campus culture around healthy eating. The USG’s UMatter campaign needs to advocate for nutritious lifestyles and discourage students from skipping meals. While the campaign attempts to address high-risk behaviors including offensive comments, atypical or withdrawn behavior, controlling behavior in a relationship and high-risk drinking, it does not address periodic avoidance or restriction of meals. Part of its tagline of “actively caring for yourself and others” should include making sure your friends are well-fed and aren’t letting schoolwork get in the way of eating regularly. It might be difficult to come up with intervention techniques that peers can use to prevent their friends from skipping meals, but we could develop social media campaigns and arrange more study breaks to raise awareness of this issue.

Finally, the University should administer another survey on eating disorders that includes questions about disordered eating. According to its 2004 survey, over half of respondents reported feeling overweight — even though this is nowhere near the population of Princeton students who actually fall into this category. But 2004 was 11 years ago. We need an updated campus-wide survey to better understand the issue of disordered eating and what factors lead to it. We might find other issues that Princeton has routinely tried to raise awareness of— stress, academic pressures and lack of time devoted to oneself — are inextricably linked to this problem.

But the first step, above all, is acknowledging that disordered eating is a problem. Students shouldn’t feel that “forgetting to eat” is as benign as forgetting their proxes in their rooms. It’s more like forgetting to breathe, sleep or blink — all of which would cause extreme harm to your body. If we put our bodies first, our minds, grades and social lives will thank us later.

Prianka Misra is a Wilson School major from Castro Valley, Calif. She can be reached at pmisra@princeton.edu.

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