By Nicole Shaker and Jules Batchker •
Emily Berkebile, senior public health major, is currently living in recovery. Her eating disorder began when she was on the middle school swim team.
“You’re wearing swimsuits a lot, you’re in front of a lot of girls and boys, and you become aware that you have a body, and you compare it to other people’s,” Berkebile said. “I just noticed things about my body that I wanted to change.”
After a long struggle, Berkebile now raises awareness on the issue. She collaborated with the National Eating Disorders Association to plan a walk at Gold Circle Lake for March 16 at 9 a.m. to support the cause.
“The harder topics like eating disorders or more severe mental health disorders can be touchy to talk about,” she said. “I just want to break that barrier of the stigma surrounding eating disorders and make it seem like, ‘Ok, this is a normal thing a lot of people struggle with,’ because so many people develop eating disorders, especially in college.”
PHOTO BY JULES BATCHKER Christi Navarro, assistant professor in the Department of Public Health, moderates panel on eating disorders on Feb. 13.
Berkebile grew up with parents on Weight Watchers who would count their calories after every meal.
“That’s tough for a little girl to grow up with,” she said.
Faced with external pressures, Berkebile added running to swimming and began to write down everything she ate.
“It was not healthy at all, whatsoever,” she said. “I was exercising way too much and not eating enough to sustain the calories that I was burning.”
Berkebile took these habits with her to high school, where she was also put on birth control, a common side effect of which is weight gain.
“I went back to the doctor, and they weighed me, and I was crying. I was like, ‘What’s happening? I’m still watching what I eat. I’m counting calories,’” she said. “The doctor actually said to me, ‘Oh well, since birth control really shouldn’t make you gain that much weight, maybe you should just try exercising more,’ and at this point I was swimming six days a week, three hours a day, and I broke down.”
In her junior year, Berkebile’s mom noticed her daughter wasn’t eating and began taking her to family based therapy.
“I knew at this point I couldn’t keep living this way, but I didn’t want to stop. I knew deep down I probably need this help, but it’s such a tricky disease, because it’ll make you think you can sustain this type of behavior,” Berkebile said. “If you want to sustain life like that, you’re going to be alone forever because all that takes up your thoughts is ‘food, food, exercise, food’ and that’s it. That’s all that’s on your brain all day when you’re not nourishing your body properly.”
Family based therapy got Berkebile onto the right track, but when she transitioned to college, she relapsed.
She then found a therapist to help her through, whom she still sees today.
“She saved my life,” Berkebile said. “She told me, ‘Emily, I know you’re going to hate me for saying this, but I really think you need to go to inpatient treatment because this is consuming you.’”
Berkebile went to Oliver-Pyatt Center in South Miami for treatment, following her therapist’s advice.
“It saved my life. It really did. It was so hard. It was awful because you know you’re there to face a disease that you want to keep living with,” Berkebile said.
At 19, she was the youngest patient there. Her roommate was almost 50.
“Being in that environment was a wake-up call for me. Eating disorders don’t have age limits. They don’t have restrictions,” she said. “It’s a tough disease to work through, for sure, but the people that I’ve met along the way in my recovery have inspired me.”
After returning to NSU, Berkebile completed an independent study last semester under Christi Navarro, assistant professor in the Department of Public Health, where she researched eating disorders through the lens of the Social Ecological Model. The deliverable of this study is the upcoming NEDA walk, which Navarro helped organize.
“She came to me the first week of class, and she said she wanted to do an independent study with me, and I’ve never met this student before,” Navarro said. “The director of the program had said, ‘You’re interested in an independent study on eating disorders. Go see Dr. Navarro. She does all the mental health stuff.’ My initial response was, ‘No,’ and then she just started telling me why, and I’m like, ‘Oh, man, I can’t say no to this.'”
Berkebile was able to get in touch with Priya James, associate director of Community Engagement for NEDA. James loved her story and passion so much that she helped Berkebile plan this as a national, not just campus-wide, event.
To get the word out about the walk, Berkebile also planned two smaller events: a sunset yoga event Jan. 25, outside Mako Hall which raised $85, and a panel discussion on eating disorders in the Health Professions Division/Terry Building on Feb. 13.
The panel featured Berkebile; Navarro; Berkebile’s therapist, Rebecca Schovitz; Meghan McNabb, sophomore chemistry major; Alexa Cohen, sophomore psychology student at the University of New Hampshire; and Sports Dietitian for NSU’s Athletics Program, Marilyn Gordon.
McNabb and Cohen are also in recovery. McNabb said her experience as a student-athlete has helped her in her journey.
“I knew that I couldn’t be putting myself on this path anymore, that I had to make a change, and the change started with me,” McNabb said. “I think that’s when I tapped into a little bit of that discipline and perseverance from being an athlete.”
Cohen sought treatment in high school. She also organized a NEDA walk on her university’s campus because she wanted to dispel misconceptions about eating disorders.
“It can affect anyone of any size, shape, and race. I feel like it’s very stereotypical that you only have an eating disorder if you’re super thin or female, and it’s just so far from true,” she said
Berkebile hopes the panel educated people about the illness.
“As someone who has personally struggled through an eating disorder and is currently living in recovery, I think it’s very important for people, like peers and friends, to know about the disease and what makes it so hard,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s such a lonely disorder. The goal of [eating disorders] is to isolate you far from your social network and anything. It wants you to be alone.”
She especially stressed that eating disorders go beyond just their physical symptoms.
“The eating disorder voice itself is so loud, and the more you listen to it, the louder it gets, and it’s just this vicious cycle,” she said. “It’s a misconception that it’s just about eating. It’s a mental illness.”
Berkebile said many may not even know they need help.
“I think a lot of people who struggle with eating disorders don’t even know that they are struggling with disordered eating until it takes so much of your life that it’s all you can think about,” she said. “I want to stress how important it is to recognize when food and eating and exercise become such a big portion of your thoughts that you need to address it as soon as possible, because I didn’t and I thought it was normal.”
She also said there is no specific appearance or feeling that corresponds with each eating disorder.
“You don’t have to look malnourished to be struggling with something this big,” she said. “The label of whatever eating disorder you have shouldn’t matter because all of them are producing the same thoughts, the same struggles, the same emotions, the same preoccupation with your body. All you can think about is the way you look and how uncomfortable you feel in your own skin. It’s just awful.”
She advised students struggling with eating disorders to seek out off-campus help and recommended her treatment center, Oliver-Pyatt Center. She said Henderson Behavioral Health in the Student Affairs Building may be helpful as a bridge to further care.
“I would just want someone at Nova struggling to know there’s hope,” she said.
Go Emily!