Students Promoting Eating Disorder Awareness & Knowledge (SPEAK) and the School of Public Health Services partnered up to bring a week full of events to GW in order to raise awareness of eating disorders. The events ran from Feb. 24-28 throughout campus.
“No one talks about eating disorders, what its like, why it happens, or how we can prevent it,” said SPEAK member Mel Rose. “Being in SPEAK allows individuals to raise awareness about prevention and learn how to help if someone does have an eating disorder.”
The week of events have included clothing giveaways, a discussion with “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski on the prevalence of eating disorders on college campuses, a free yoga class, a screening of the film “America the Beautiful”, and concluded today with a ‘trashing of the scale’ event aimed at promoting the importance of focusing on health and not a number. Participants were provided scales to graffiti and learned about how they could focus on being healthy and not simply reaching for a certain number.
“Our organization might not have as many members as GW Democrats or Republicans, but we speak for something that is such an immense issue in the world, especially in college,” said Rose.
According to the National Eating Disorder Association, 95 percent of those who have eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 26.