Before Kirsten Haglund was crowned Miss America in 2008, she grew up dreaming of being a ballerina. She had been taking ballet classes since she was 3 years old, and she learned to idolize professional dancing and the small, thin body types of the dancers.

Emory student Kirsten Haglund was crowned Miss America in 2008 at age 19, two years after battling anorexia nervosa.

 

 

"Ballet was my whole world, my whole passion. When I turned 12, I wanted to be a professional dancer. But that's also the age when your body starts to change," Haglund said. "So I went on my first diet at age 12."

 

That was the beginning of Haglund's struggle with anorexia nervosa, just one of the eating disorders that plague nearly 20 million women and 10 million men at some point in their lives, according to the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA), which marked National Eating Disorder Awareness Week at the end of February.

 

Although eating disorders often revolve around physical characteristics, like weight and body image, experts stress that they are chiefly mental illnesses. And they are particularly harmful. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rates of any mental illness, according to NEDA.

 

Eating disorders also have serious health consequences. Anorexia can lead to a host of dangerous health problems, including brittle bones, reduced muscle mass and a risk of heart failure. Bulimia nervosa also increases the risk of heart failure and often leads to chronic gastrointestinal problems and tooth decay. Binge eating disorder can create the same chronic problems as obesity, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.

 

Linda Craighead, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Emory University, said eating disorders were once perceived as conditions affecting mostly young, white women. But an increasing number of Americans of all ages, races and genders are now reporting struggles with anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder.

 

"There's almost no group that is completely immune to them," Craighead said, "even 8-year-old girls and boys."

 

When 12-year-old Haglund left her home in Michigan to enroll in the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet School, she found herself surrounded by other girls who were obsessed with their size, so afraid of gaining weight that they threw away their lunches every day.

 

"I felt I was bigger than them, even though I wasn't. I felt very insecure," she said. "I thought, I'll go on a diet and just lose five pounds, and then I'll be beautiful and be a better dancer. I started throwing my lunch away, too."

 

As anorexia took over Haglund's life, she lost 30 pounds in three years. Her focus on dieting increased, and she became depressed and isolated. Finally, at age 15, her mother forced her to see a doctor, who immediately recognized Haglund's eating disorder. She quit ballet, moved back to Michigan and began two years of intensive outpatient treatment for anorexia.

 

Young women and men in the ballet world often face extraordinary pressures when it comes to their bodies, but Haglund said the pressures she faced are no more significant than those that young people face today. In fact, messages in the media urging girls and boys to be thin and beautiful have only gotten more overwhelming, she said.

 

"There's this pressure on them earlier and earlier to be attractive, to be worth something, to be happy. I think now the pressure is spread across the board," Haglund said.

 

Craighead said eating disorders often begin as fairly normal extensions of typical bad eating habits. In the U.S., land of eye-popping portions and endless food advertising, overeating is very common and often promoted. On the other hand, weight loss through excessive dieting is rewarded and admired. Craighead said for many people, it doesn't take much for these unhealthy behaviors to spiral out of control.

 

"Eating disorders take off when a person has stressors in their life, and they don't feel they have control over a lot of things. Having control over eating makes them feel in control," she said. "That's the common thread between different eating disorders - that feeling of control."

 

Concern about eating disorders becomes even more complicated as the U.S. tries to confront its obesity problem, encouraging millions of Americans to trim their waistlines. Craighead said health professionals have found themselves delivering clashing messages, encouraging one portion of the population to focus on their diets and weight loss and others to stop idealizing a particular body size.

 

"But in both cases, we're trying to move people toward the middle, toward normalized eating," she said. "We need to turn away from focusing on what we look like and focus on health rather than appearance."

 

Haglund was crowned Miss America at age 19, one of the youngest women ever to win the title. Although beauty pageants may not seem like an ideal place for a person who has struggled with her body image, Haglund said the opportunity to raise awareness about eating disorders strengthened her when the pressure was on.

 

"I was talking to young women and girls on a daily basis about loving themselves for more than what they look like. I couldn't be saying that to girls and not living it in my own head," she said.

 

Haglund will graduate from Emory in May with a degree in political science. She also serves as a community relations specialist for Timberline Knolls, an eating disorder clinic in Chicago, where she encourages young women and men to focus on developing a healthy attitude about eating and their bodies.

 

"In our society, it seems like what it is to be a woman is to diet and hate your body," Haglund said. "I think the emphasis should be on clean eating and encouraging everyone to be active. If you're going to go on a diet, go on a media diet."

 

For more information on eating disorders, visit NEDA's website, www.nationaleatingdisorders.org. For other help or treatment referrals, call NEDA's live helpline at 1-800-931-2237.