“I saw a multimedia presentation on male eating disorders—body dysmorphia—which focused on steroid use and obsessive gym use,” Lister said. “There is still stigma attached to men and eating disorders, although it may take a different form, ”

A PERFECTIONIST’S PROBLEM?

Hawley points to the academic and social forces at Harvard as a source of pressure on students to fixate on body image.

“I go to the gym and see girls working out for hours and hours. It’s painful and triggering,” Hawley said. “Academically, socially, and extracurricularly the way to show you have it under control is to be skinny.”

With the day to day stresses of undergraduate life, it can be difficult to find time to “press pause” and deal with an issue.

“Life is so busy here that it’s hard to think and process things,” Megan said. “You’ll put your problem off and deal with this next week when activities die down but time passes and you don’t ask for help.”

Despite comments that Harvard’s Type-A culture facilitates eating disorders, the incidence of eating disorders on Harvard’s campus have been consistent with numbers around the country, according to McKenna.

About 1 percent of students nationally are diagnosed with anorexia and about 3 to 5 percent with bulimia.

Nonetheless, Lister said that at competitive academic institutions, the pressure to achieve perfection is pervasive, and people often feel alone.

“At Harvard everyone is so high-functioning and we have a very skinny campus to begin with, abnormally so,” Lister said. “People feel like if something is going wrong, they’re the only one who’s going through it.”

To reduce such feelings of loneliness, Chapman, the long-time member of the Eating Disorder Hotline, said that the College is taking steps to provide mental health training and information about peer counseling during Freshman Opening Days, where she hopes eating disorders will be addressed.

“Freshman year is a gateway to knowing so much about Harvard. Information you get about resources will stick with you,” Lister said. “People see the posters, but don’t really know about the resources until later in their Harvard careers.”

FINDING A SAFE SPACE

“We have very robust resources to care for students with eating disorders,” said McKenna, referencing the UHS “Eating Disorder Team.”

UHS provides many forms of care, including individual therapy, group therapy, and medical monitoring by a primary care nurse or doctor, according to McKenna.