Eating disorders awareness week will help individuals recognize the signs and dangers of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, the most common eating disorders among college students.

“How to help friends with eating disorders” is the topic of Kathy Hotelling, director of Counseling and Student Development Center’s workshop on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Holmes Student Center, Room 405. The workshop is open to the public.

The purpose of the awarness week is to target individuals with eating disorders.

The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders states, 20 to 30 percent of the college population is Bulimia and five to seven percent of that statistic are males. It also states that one of every 100 women are anorexia.

Dieting makes them feel like they are in control. Over the summer 13 percent of the people seen on an on-going basis had an eating disorder. The center requires that victims of eating disorders be under the care of a physician, before they receive therapy from the center.

People suffering from disorders don’t seek help until three to six years after the problem started. The problem cannot be overcome if the person denies its existence. The sooner the person seeks help the better.

Eating disorders are not a problem of being fat as much as how the people suffering feel about themselves and other people, Hotelling said. It is a psychological problem with physical consequences. Treatment needs to be psychologically and medically.

The center offers individual and group counselling for people suffering with a disorder. If the anorexic is not in medical danger than individual therapy would be given. However, the center prefers to see bulimic victims in a group therapy. The purpose is to see how the disorder has affected their life and to find ways to deal with it other than not eating or purging.

At least 95 percent of anorexics are women and the reason is that they are expected to be thin to succeed and they are not taught how to like themselves. Anorexics usually blame themselves rather than dealing with it constructively, Hotelling said. Victims of eating disorders are usually perfectionists, high achievers or emotionally insecure.

The food becomes more important in life than any other things, Zuber said. Bulimics go on binges in which they eat “large quantities” of food, almost always carbohydrates or junk food, at one time. Binges are followed by purging or self induced vomiting, self starvation, the use of laxatives or diet pills or excessive exercise. The bulimic may purge using one or all of the ways mentioned. People may not be a “full blown bulimic” but as one adds the symptoms help is needed, Hotelling said.