Building Eating Disorder Awareness: One School at a Time
Schools should be a safe place for students to learn and explore, and a setting where information shared is accurate and trustworthy. Teachers, staff & coaches are authority figures whose role evokes and assumes trustworthiness and, thus, greatly impacts students. School culture, groupthink & peer buy-in also mitigate the intensity of school messaging.
Students’ young brains are very malleable to absorb, process and store content curating tenets about the health and maintenance of their bodies.
Research from 2022 to 2023 shows significant increase in youth eating disorders, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. School’s governance of health & wellness themes in the school at large and specifically in health classes & sports settings is integral to ameliorating harmful and decisive self-narratives in youth that can mitigate eating disorder and mood symptoms.
Health literacy in the classroom, in sports and in the overall school culture should be vetted from a standardized rubric developed from research & evidenced based curriculum.
In the state of Ohio, there are no established guidelines for health education curriculum. Regulatory bodies dictate the topics to be addressed but no pathway or method for delivery. Staff & coaches may have a curriculum that is handed down year after year without a criterion for required updates. Instructors may have to borrow from anecdotal, personal, historical & trending sources which can result in potentially outdated, misleading & false information.
For those of us who work with adolescents and teens, there are numerous accounts of students relaying information about early school messages and content that precipitated restriction, compulsive behaviors or ruminating thoughts on these themes. Though these early messages may echo universal trends that they will undoubtedly be exposed to at some point, a more developed and mature brain may better use executive functioning and scrutiny before adopting new behaviors or thoughts. Additionally, less trusted sources may be less veritable than the insular school setting.
In a bold initiative to affect change in these areas, the Hull institute is committed to guiding schools in the following manner:
1. General eating disorder education & awareness
2. Specific direction for health classes, counseling & coaching related to nutrition, fitness and body image
3. Ongoing consulting and guidance
4. Restructuring of health class curriculum
This is a vast & challenging goal, so we intend to build momentum one school at a time with the hope of eventually globalizing fact-based, non-triggering, neutral and flexible language and concepts in schools. Committees to address overall education as well as health class curriculum are currently being developed. Please contact the Hull Institute if you would like to support or be an active participant in this vital initiative to affect change for students.
Examples of messages/projects clients have shared from various school settings.
- “If you eat fast food 1x a month, you will die 3 years earlier than normal.”
- Sugar gives you diabetes
- You should be doing movement every day for heart health
- Salt is bad for your heart and can lead to heart disease
- Junk food is not food
- Don’t eat empty calories
- Intermittent fasting increases metabolism
- Consume drinks without sugar
- Anorexics want to be skinny
- Assignment: weigh yourself daily and keep a food log – journal: on If you were good or bad with eating
- Assignment: make a goal for how you want to change your body – identify action steps
- Assignment: How does the body lose weight?
- Instructor had a student stand up and use their body as an example of the ideal body fat/muscle balance
By Caise Rode McHale, MSSA, LISW
Caise is a Licensed Social Worker with a Master’s from Case Western Reserve University and a Bachelor’s from The Ohio State University. With over 20 years of experience, her work spans school administration in NYC, hospital and school-based counseling in Cleveland, and 12 years in private practice with at-risk youth and adults. Since 2018, she has been with The Hull Institute, specializing in eating disorders and co-occurring issues. Caise is trained in Trauma-Focused CBT and DBT and brings a strengths-based, family-focused approach to recovery. Her sessions are evidence-based, creative, and engaging.