Hal Fox
The William Magee Center’s Comprehensive Eating Disorder Program at UM is collecting donations of old scales for its upcoming Scale B.A.S.H. (Body Appreciation Starts Here) event to support body positivity and raise awareness of eating disorders.
Students will have the opportunity to draw on scales and write messages about body positivity.
Donation receptacles are located at the front desks of the South Campus Recreation Center and Turner Center. To donate, bring scales of any size, brand and level of functionality. The event will be held on Nov. 8 at Union Plaza from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and at the Grove Stage from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m..
“It’s going to be an opportunity for students to come together and write really positive affirmations of self-love and body appreciation,” Sierra Elston, a coordinator for wellness education at the William Magee Center, said. “Later in the evening, we are going to have a spoken word opportunity for our campus community to go onstage and share their stories of body appreciation and self-love.”
Around 10-20% of women and 4-10% of men in college suffer from an eating disorder, according to research from the National Eating Disorders Association.
“A lot of people don’t realize that eating disorders are the deadliest mental illness. Very few campuses provide any type of services or outreach tied to eating disorders,” Elston said. “Eating disorders don’t look like one thing. It affects all races, all genders, sexual orientations. Everyone is vulnerable to navigating an eating disorder or disordered eating behavior.”
Apart from the severity of the issue, the staff at William Magee Center felt the Scale B.A.S.H. was an important event to hold because of how common disordered eating is among college students.
“It’s something that we all wanted to bring to life here after really listening to what students were saying when we started speaking to them about eating disorder awareness and seeing it resonate,” Elston said.
Elston emphasized that a lot of the work of the William Magee Center is combating harmful narratives that students take to heart about themselves and their health, one of them being the “freshman 15,” the oft-told anecdote that freshman students often gain on average 15 pounds in their first year of college.
“We know what we see in the media, we hear about the ‘freshman 15.’ If you look at the data, you know that’s not true. It may be on average five pounds at the most and these are growing adults, that’s a normal piece of life. But the media doesn’t sell it to them that way. It’s the ‘freshman 15,’ and you need to be careful what you eat so you don’t gain that scary 15 pounds,” Elston said. “The Scale B.A.S.H. is challenging that messaging that they receive prior to arriving here.”
Blankets and tote bags embroidered with the William Magee Center’s name will be handed out for free at the event.
“Aside from the scales, we’ll have statements on the table that students can drop a popcorn kernel into a jar to indicate their agreement with the statements,” Elston said.
The statements say things like, “I know how to find or get in contact with eating disorder resources on campus,” and, “If I knew someone with an eating disorder, I would try and get them connected to help.”
This is in part to show students that suffer from an eating disorder the magnitude of support from other students on campus.
“There will be two counselors on staff who will be on site to answer any questions students have or address any uncomfortable feelings that might arise through this activity,” Elston said.
The Scale B.A.S.H. is a small part of the work that the William Magee Center does to raise awareness about eating disorders and provide a support structure on campus.
“A large component of our work is just general outreach, presentations. We reach around 500-600 students a month just with eating disorder presentations highlighting the efforts of our eating disorder treatment team, where we provide free services for students,” Elston said. “We have cooking demos where we teach students how to build nutritious, balanced and calorically dense meals, all provided at no cost. In a lot of cases, it’s our freshman and our first-year students that need this information, because they’re transitioning into a very difficult environment to navigate and not have access to a kitchen from home. We try to make the meals as easy and simple as possible because everyone has different levels of cooking experience.”
More events are planned for the spring semester, including a continuation of the Scale B.A.S.H. project.
“February is National Eating Disorder Awareness Month, so we’re going to have an entire month of activities. A component of that will be carrying over the Scale BASH and displaying them, location to be determined,” Elston said.
For more information on the William Magee Center’s programming or to seek help for an eating disorder or problems with disordered eating, follow their Instagram @mageecenter1 or contact them via phone number at (662) 915-6543 or via email at wellnessedu@olemiss.edu.
