Survey Highlights
WHAT WE LEARNED
Note : Respondents of the survey were campus staff implementing mental health
services, providing eating disorders information and facilitating eating disorders
outreach and prevention programming.
Overall, survey results indicate that greater funding and resources are needed to educate,
screen, refer and treat college students who struggle with eating disorders or disordered
eating issues.
Educational information was among
the most commonly cited resources
available, and was evaluated to
be very/extremely important, with
web–based or health service options
the most important.
Screenings for eating disorders
on campus are seriously lacking.
Screenings for eating disorders can be a
critical component of identifying those
struggling and intervening early, which
improves treatment prognosis. 87% of
respondents said it is important to offer,
yet only 22.4% of those surveyed offer
year–round screening opportunities and
less than half (45.2%) offer screenings
once per year/semester (19 people) or
monthly/weekly/daily (33 people). Lack
of screenings potentially contributes to
students struggling going undetected
and untreated.
The survey found that informational pam-
phlets, websites, were most frequently
cited as daily, year round resources avail-
able (8 0 – 8 5 % o f fer such resources), and
evaluated as extremely important. 97.9%
said web–based information is somewhat
(22.9%) or very/extremely (75%) important,
and 96.1% stated pamphlets and brochure
in the health or counseling services office
is important (68.6% said very/extremely
important, 27.5% said somewhat impor-
tant). Library collections were pretty
evenly split between “not important”
(30.5%), “somewhat important” (35.6%) and
“very/extremely important” (33.9%), indi-
cating library–based resources are seen
as less critical than web–based or health
services–based options.
Overall, there is an unmet need for
individuals on campus who are in
a position to identify and refer
students to help to be better edu-
cated/trained. For example:
• 90.7% of respondents thought training
opportunities for fitness instructors and
dieticians was important (74.6% said
very/extremely important, 16.1% said
somewhat important), but only 22% said
their campus offers such opportunities.
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