Fort Hays Health and Wellness Services collaborated with Breathe Coffee House to organize a Can We Just Talk? dialogue about eating disorders inside the Memorial Union Cody Commons on Thursday. The event featured a discussion among panelists and breakout sessions between students and panelists to mark Eating Disorder Awareness Week.
Can We Just Talk? is a program established by Breathe and Dialogue Ministries to address the issues of loneliness, societal disconnection, mental illness and societal stigmas.
"We're dedicated to creating environments where people can connect and communicate with each other on a deeper level," psychology major Nevaeh Copenhaver said. "Today, on this special Can We Just Talk?, our wonderful panelists are going to share their unique perspectives on a topic that is very sensitive for people with eating disorders."
Each panelist shared their perspective on eating disorders to explore clinical and nutritional insight along with their struggles.
Brooklynn Raacke, also a psychology major, began the discussion with her experience living with Anorexia.
"It began in 2019," she said. "We moved away from Kansas to Wisconsin, and I met with my [new] primary care physician. After all our conversations were done, she sat me down and was like, 'You know, you need to slow down on the cheese curds.' I was taken aback because I had this authority figure commenting about a young, impressionable woman's weight."
This caused embarrassment for Raacke, and she chose to keep the issue to herself.
"I was very ashamed that someone had to tell me that as an eighth grader," she said. "Then, in March 2020, COVID hit, and that was difficult for us. The dance stopped, and [as a dancer] that was a big source of what I used to allow my emotions, and I didn't quite know what to do with myself since that was taken away from me."
While she took up daily jogging to regulate her emotions, she faced hardship from rigidity in her routine.
"If it was raining one day, I'd have a breakdown and be upset," Raacke said. "I had to change what I was eating throughout the next couple of hours to fit not being able to run in the morning. By August, I was a freshman in high school, and I started to run three miles in the morning. Then I'd go to school and dance, but I wasn't feeling myself properly. People kept congratulating me on taking care of my body, but little did they know it was hurting me more than helping me."
After receiving help from the Emily Program in Seattle, Raacke helps others through her blog, which is dedicated to providing support.
"I wouldn't wish it upon anybody else," she said. "It did flourish and made me who I am today, and now it gives me the passion to help adolescents with eating disorders because someone can be struggling in silence for so long like I was."
FHSU Psychology Professor and therapist Will Stutterheim advocates for mental health awareness in rural communities.
"What we saw in smaller towns was challenges in having the appropriate resources out there for people to get the help they need," he said. "Luckily, through the course of my career, I got some advanced training in cognitive behavioral therapy, and some of that was focused on treating eating disorders with CBT."
He acknowledged the difficulty of disclosing an eating disorder to others like Raacke did.
"To go forward and get treatment for it is one of the very challenging parts," Stutterheim said. "If you tell people they have a problem, you see a backfire effect where they're not contemplating that. So, in small communities, we're trying to do the best we can to treat physically through the clinics, and then to the mental health clinic doing the work on the mental side of the treatment."
Nutrition Professor Pam Greenleaf gave a nutritionist insight into eating disorders.
"I prefer to work with people on learning how to interpret their own bodies on the scales," she said. "All our bodies are unique, and we see these words, qualifications, sizes and different people, so I help them develop the skills to be themselves in a reliable way."
Her work revolves around attitudes about food and working with nutrition information.
"There's a lot of static that goes on with people who live in this culture with diet stuff," Greenleaf said. "When the body is undernourished, it makes it harder to hear what it needs, so to diminish a habit, you need to know what the body needs and honor those needs. Then, have some people alongside you to help encourage your meal-planning skills. Eating is a universal human experience, and you need to promote different behaviors than being tied up in culture or trauma."
Assistant Professor in Nursing Lisa Brenning closed the panel with her experience supporting a child through Anorexia Nervosa.
"My daughter was diagnosed when she was 12 years old," she said. "She needed inpatient treatment, but the wait time was too long, and they told me she was too sick to go to outpatient treatment, so we tried to nourish her enough before we could take her to a hospital."
A lesson she learned is that recovery for someone struggling with an eating disorder is tumultuous, and help is needed even if adequate nourishment is reached.
"Recovery is not a linear process," Brenning said. "There are a lot of ups and downs along the way. We have days that are good and days that are bad. So, she looks healthy, and she's way better than she ever was, but we still want to get her in a solid spot."
More information about Can We Just Talk? can be found at breathecoffee.com.