When Rachel arrived at Harvard as a first-year student, she was determined to avoid the dreaded "freshman 15." She ate salads, rather than the dining hall's main courses, and avoided desserts.

But after she gained three pounds in the fall of her first year, she panicked.

"I had this horrible fear of getting fat," the junior says.

The first time she tried to make herself throw up, just after her first-year winter break, she failed. But the next time, she stuck two fingers in her throat and purged.

"It was the only way," she says. "I sort of felt I was watching someone else do it. It seemed like the logical solution to me at the time."

Rachel's situation is far from unique at Harvard.

About 20 percent of Harvard's undergraduate women have serious clinical or subclinical eating disorders, according to a 1992 survey by former Assistant Professor of Psychology Todd F. Heatherton.

About five percent of all Harvard women have clinically diagnosable eating disorders, which are more serious than their sub-clinical counterparts, according to the survey. One percent of Harvard men have a clinical eating disorder, the study found.

Rachel says societal pressure to be thin and the normal stress of undergraduate life at Harvard made her problem worse.

"A part of the profile of someone with an eating disorder very much matches part of the profile of the sort of person Harvard values: high-achieving, perfectionist, people-pleasing, and driven," says Sheila M. Reindel '80-'81, a counselor at the Bureau of Study Counsel.

The College offers several resources for students with eating problems. The Bureau of Study Counsel, the University Health Services (UHS) and the undergraduate-run Eating Concerns Hotline and Outreach (ECHO) all cater to their needs with counseling, peer groups and medical attention.

New resources will also likely become available this year--including a proposed student outreach organization--filling some voids in the Harvard support structure.

But despite the treatment options, most of the troubled students do not seek help.

In Heatherton's survey, "what became clear is that most people felt they could handle [their eating disorders] on their own, probably unsuccessfully," Heatherton says. "There's a resistance to using the resources available."

Common Problem