Technician
friday april
13 2012
Raleigh, North Carolina
technicianonline.com
Students march against eating disorders Students look to raise awareness about Americans suffering from psychological disorders. Sam DeGrave Staff Writer
At the age of 18, Sara Shillinglaw, now a senior in communications, began a struggle with her body image that rapidly progressed into an illness that consumed every aspect of her life. What started as obsessive exercise and calorie counting evolved into a dangerous and potentially life-threatening eating disorder known as anorexia. In her junior year, Shillinglaw hit an all-time low in her fight against a disorder that affects as many as 10 million women and one million men in the U.S. alone, according to the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA). Merrie Shillinglaw, junior in nutrition science and sister of Sara, decided to join the campaign to spread awareness about eating disorders after she witnessed the devastating effects they had both on her sister and other friends. Merrie Shillinglaw works with NEDA as the head student volunteer in charge of helping to coordinate a walk for awareness that the association will hold at Meredith College this Sunday. The walk will take place between 2 and 3:30 p.m. at the Meredith College Greenway, and participants will be able register online prior to arriving or onsite before the walk starts. Registration costs $20 per adult (age 13 and older), $10 per child (age 12 and younger) and $5 per pet. Tshirts commemorating the walk will be sold for $10 and donations are encouraged. In addition to heightening awareness, NEDA hopes to raise $5,000 to support research for eating disorders, which the association said are underfunded and overlooked. “Everybody can benefit from being aware of the dangers of eating disorders,” Merrie said. “They are a growing epidemic that is starting to affect more people, especially college students.” NEDA’s national statistics find that nearly half of all eating disorders are developed between the ages of 15 and 20, which means college students are at a higher risk of establishing poor self-image and
Photo courtesy of neda
National Eating Disorder Association volunteers raise awareness about the consequences and damage the common psychological disorder inflicts.
unhealthy relationships with food than most other demographics. Susan Miller, clinical director of Miller Counseling Services and an alumna of N.C. State, said the correlation between eating disorders and college students is no coincidence. Miller has served as a counselor for more than 30 years and has been working with patients suffering from eating disorders for more than a decade, plenty of whom have been college students. “Behaviors of students with eating disorders are often coping mechanisms for dealing with the anxiety of being on your own for the first time and dealing with life,” Miller said. “Such behaviors can often become addictive and are beyond the control of those who suffer from them.” Now, more than a year after her hitting lowest point, Sara Shillinglaw is on the road to recovery, but she knows it will not be an easy journey. Recovery from any eating disorder is a long and often expensive process. Sara Shillinglaw said every day is a struggle when trying to put an eating disorder behind. “You have to take it day by day,” Sara Shillinglaw said. Sara Shillinglaw plans on participating in Sunday’s walk with
Photo courtesy of neda
The National Eating Disorder Association distributes plaid ribbons to raise awareness about the disorders that afflict as many as 36 million people in the U.S.
her sister and recommends all students register to walk with them. She believes one aspect that makes it so hard for people with eating disorders to recover is the shame that often accompanies the illness. “It’s hard to raise awareness for mental disorders because they are
so stigmatized by society,” she said. This commonly held view of eating disorders is exactly what NEDA members are working to change, one walk at a time. However, they will only be successful in their goal if society decides to walk with them.
For more information concerning eating disorders please visit NEDA’s website at www.nationaleatingdisorders. org or the N.C. State student health center. If you or anyone you know is suffering from an eating disorder do not hesitate to seek out help, as it is always available.
Independent filmmaker to hold University screening Urbanized to be shown in Witherspoon, with Q&A with the director. Lauren Vanderveen Staff Writer
Sweeping skylines, masses of people walking across busy streets and designers creating scale models of cities blend with images of overcrowded urban areas and street protests in the trailer for Gary Hustwit’s film Urbanized. A free screening of this film will be hosted at Campus Cinema in Witherspoon on Sunday, April 15, at 7 p.m., followed by a Q&A with the director. Urbanized is a documentary about the design of cities and how it shapes our everyday lives, Hustwit said. “From the moment you step out your front door, your day is determined by the design of your city,” Hustwit said. “So I guess I wanted to explore the thinking and strategies
behind urban design to get a better sense of how it affects my life and what I can do to help shape the city I live in for the better.” Hustwit said inspiration for the film also came from wanting to look at and spread ideas about innovative design projects in other cities. “There are also so many challenges that are facing cities around the world, and many of those challenges are being addressed through design,” Hustwit said. The director’s presence on Sunday originates from the collaboration between the film studies program at N.C. State and the Full Frame Documentary Festival based in Durham. “We have been partnering with them for many years now,” Marsha Orgeron, director of film studies, said. Every year the film studies program sends a group of N.C. State student fellows to Full Frame. Once there, they are allowed to participate in special sessions with filmmakers
and go to smaller panels, along with the regular screenings. About 100 documentary films will be featured over the course of four days, in six theaters. Last year alone, Full Frame distributed about 28,000 tickets, Sadie Tillery, director of programming for Full Frame, said. As part of the University’s relationship with this festival, filmmakers who are affiliated with Full Frame are invited to bring their film on campus and discuss it. In 2007, Laura Poitras was one such director who came to talk about and screen her Academy Award nominee film My Country, My Country. According to Orgeron, Hustwit participated in the fellows program before as a panelist at Full Frame. “Most filmmakers are really excited to get their work in front of college students,” Tillery said. Hustwit’s film to be screened in Witherspoon is the latest in his design-oriented trilogy, proceed-
ing Helvetica (2007) and Objectified (2009). “Both [Helvetica and Objectified] are very, very interesting,” Orgeron said. “They’re slick, they’re well done, they’re engaging, they’re entertaining. I mean Helvetica is about a font and it has the potential to be completely uninteresting, but it’s a totally fascinating film.” Hustwit doesn’t produce his documentaries through the traditional avenues of investors, however. Along with his own personal money, Kickstarter is an online site he uses to raise funds from the public to create his films. “Literally, you just say, ‘Look, I need 10 or 20 or however many thousands of dollars, and if you donate at this level you’ll get a T-shirt and a DVD when the film comes out. If you donate at this level, you get your name in the credits,’” Orgeron said. “So it allows you to not have any other ties and obligations beyond basically a support group
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that can make donations.” The cost of a documentary isn’t a lot and can be paid in stages over the course of the project, Hustwit said. His advice for students: “If you have a great concept for a film, the money will find you. Don’t obsess over the funding or the equipment, obsess over the concept.” “I think he’s an incredible inspiration for students, in terms of how you can think about really pursuing a career in filmmaking completely independently,” Orgeron said. Looking past the upcoming N.C. State screening of Urbanized, Hustwit has other plans in the making. “I have dozens of film ideas, for both documentary and fiction films,” Hustwit said. “I’m planning on starting a few new film projects this summer, but I’m not sure which ones they’ll be yet. I’m also collaborating with another photographer on a book project that we’ll announce later this month.”