In the United States as many as 10 million females and one million males are fighting a life or death battle with an eating disorder, such as anorexia or bulimia. Nearly 25 million more are struggling with binge eating disorders.

As many as 91 percent of college women have attempted to control their weight through dieting and about 25 percent of those “normal dieters” will progress to eating disorders according to the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA).

The UNCW counseling center on March 13-20 will hold workshops across campus in the residence halls and sorority chapters. “The purpose of these events is to provide information about eating disorders and initiate dialog about body image,” said Dr. Paulette Aasen at the counseling center.

NEDA studies show that 80 percent of American women are dissatisfied with their appearance. In the U.S. alone, $40 billion dollars a year is spent by men and women on diet-related products.

While many in the health field feel eating disorders, especially anorexia, bulimia and binge eating, are on the rise, hard data is difficult to obtain. “We have no solid statistics, but we feel there is an increase,” Barbara Reid, a spokeswoman for the NEDA in Seattle, WA, said in a telephone interview. “But in this field statistics are only estimates, at best.”

There are a number of reasons for the difficulty in collecting data. “This is a self-reporting illness,” Reid said, “and many people are ashamed to come forward. Also doctors and health care professionals are not required to report cases to government agencies, as they are with HIV/AIDS,” she said.

Dr. Lynne Reader, Director of the UNCW counseling center, said she doesn’t have exact numbers of students who are counseled for eating disorders. “I can’t say they’re increasing or that the illness is more prevalent now,” she said. “But it is definitely a concern among college students.”

Reader said eating disorders are not at the top of the list of problems for which students seek help. She ranks it behind a host of college students’ difficulties. “Anxiety, stress, depression, relationships, self-esteem and financial matters are more prevalent,” she said.

Reader said it is not always easy to immediately identify or isolate an eating disorder from other problems. “It can be a constellation of concerns. There can be many underlying causes, such as depression, family discord or addiction in the family.”

“It’s not always simple,” Reader said. “Often it goes very deep into how they feel about themselves. We have to ask what else is going on in their lives.”

Reader said that generally if the counselors on campus suspect an eating disorder, the student is referred to a medical doctor, to check for physical problems, and to psychology professionals for counseling and therapy.

Dr. Kayj Okine, who previously worked in the counseling center, believes more people are coming forward with eating disorders. She started the Chrysalis Center in Wilmington to treat the illness. “There was no way to be able to meet the demand for help on campus,” Okine said.

Okine, a UNCW psychology instructor, said she didn’t have exact numbers on the disease, but the rate among men is rapidly increasing. “It is becoming more equalized between men and women,” she said.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services statistics back that up. They show that while 90 percent of those with eating problems are women between the ages of 12 and 25, there are increasing numbers of males and older women.

NEDA spokeswoman Reid agreed. “It appears to be spreading in all populations,” she said. “We now have volunteers in 10 countries.”

Many of the experts in the field also point to an increasing awareness of the disease and its treatment being instrumental in people seeking help and thus increasing the number of reported eating disorder cases.

It has been nearly 27 years since Hilde Bruch wrote “The Golden Cage” defining eating disorders to the general public. Published in 1978, it was the first major publication on the subject not aimed primarily at the medical community.

Dr. Reader said that for college students the causes of eating disorders are part of a larger picture. “It comes down to what we as a culture value,” she said “Perhaps we put too much emphasis on physical attractiveness.”

“We see pictures of airbrushed models in magazines and television,” she said. “Maybe we lose site of what is really important in a person.”