Humans of St. Norbert:

“In 2019, I was formally diagnosed with anorexia. Anorexia is one of the deadliest eating disorders, and I was diagnosed after years of struggling with disordered eating tendencies and behaviors, body image dissatisfaction and body dysmorphia. So last year my body was literally dying at this time as I deprived it from proper nourishment and nutrition. How this really manifested for me was I was experiencing heart issues as well as numbness in the left side of my body occasionally, which would result in me passing out due to my weakness and not having proper food in my body. I am really proud to say that 13 months later, I am recovering from anorexia. I’m recovering from my eating disorder and I feel stronger now than I ever have in terms of my self-confidence and being empowered as a woman. I’m also living a happier and more fulfilling life right now, which is amazing and is a result of my recovery from an eating disorder, but also from working through those deep, emotional issues that led to the eating disorder behaviors and tendencies.

“As I recover, which will be this lifelong endeavor, I’m actually really enraged right now by the fact that other people, specifically Black women, won’t have the same right and access to medical help due to the color of their skin. Eating disorders are usually seen as a white women’s problem or a white women’s disease or illness, but eating disorders don’t discriminate. It doesn’t matter what the color of your skin is, what your sexual orientation is, your age, your gender, your sex, your religion, your political affiliation – it doesn’t matter. Individuals of all kinds and all diversity are at risk and at danger for getting an eating disorder, especially individuals who have experienced past trauma, have emotional issues that haven’t been dealt with, or are living a high-stress life. So, I think about the stressor that Black women have constantly, which is this notion of racism and living in today’s society. How that stress is causing a lot of emotional pain and emotional scarring.

“I wanted to share some research that shows the discrepancies in eating disorders between white and Black individuals. Research has shown that Black teenagers are 50 percent more likely than white teenagers to exhibit bulimic behaviors. Yet other research demonstrates that clinicians are much more willing to see a white woman’s disordered eating symptoms as more problematic than a Black woman’s disordered eating behaviors. … And so when I think about the current pandemic of racism in society today, I not only fight to dismantle these racist systems, but also fight against the pandemic of eating disorders. It’s really important that I am in recovery, but being in recovery is a white privilege in and of itself.” – Anna Antos ’07, associate professor of communication and media studies