Eating disorder screening available during Celebrate Your Body Day

Eating disorders, including anorexia and bulimia, affect about half of all college women. And women at IU are no exception, said Luana Nan, a coordinator of Wednesday’s Celebrate Your Body Day.\nIU Counseling and Psychological Services is hosting the event Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the School of Education atrium, Herman B Wells Library lobby and Foster-Gresham lobby, and from 4 to 7 p.m. in the Student Recreational Sports Center lobby.\nThe event is being held to promote positive self-image and awareness about eating disorders.\nNan, who is also an intern for CAPS, said the day is “an opportunity for students to exercise awareness about what our body does for us as an instrument of our life, and to reflect on the fundamental union between mind and body.”\nCreated so students can screen themselves for eating disorders, Celebrate Your Body Day provides students with evaluative questionnaires, self-acceptance exercises, information about eating disorders and on-site CAPS counselors to offer recommendations and resources.\n“I dislike the emphasis that our society in general, and media in particular, place on our body being an ornament for others, with more importance placed on physical beauty than on inner beauty, accompanied by certain standards for physical beauty,” Nan said in an e-mail. “For me, it is not only about our body being a vehicle for our being and moving in the world, but especially about our body being fraught with emotion and wisdom.”\nDeeDee Dayhoff, a faculty coordinator and CAPS therapist, said the event has been called Eating Disorders Screening Day in the past.\n“We wanted to focus more on body acceptance this year,” Dayhoff said, “so we are doing a few things differently, such as making the screening tool optional and shifting the attention to acceptance.”\nChances to win prizes will also be available for students who fill out the questionnaires.\n“We have a number of donations that local businesses have made to support this event and encourage student participation. Some of these businesses include Mira, (the Scholars Inn) Bakehouse, Malibu Grill and Suburban Lanes,” Dayhoff said. “Students who participate in this event will be registered to win gift certificates from these businesses.”\nBoth faculty and student organizers emphasized the importance of student participation in this event, and they encouraged all students to be involved.\n“Forty to 60 percent of college women have some level of disordered eating,” Nan said. “Each year the program is redesigned with the intention of reaching out to more students, sending out a stronger message and building a culture that embraces positive body image and self-care.”