In an effort to bring attention to eating disorders, Iowa State’s Student Counseling Service will be sponsoring the “Love Your Body Fair” next week to coincide with National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.

The two-day fair, which will be held Feb. 14 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the lobby of the Student Health Center and Feb. 15 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Leid Recreation Center, will provide eating-disorder screenings and educational materials. Some of the issues that will be covered include managing blood pressure and stress and smoking cessation, said Brooks Morse, staff psychologist at the Student Counseling Center.

The eating-disorder screenings, which are free and confidential, will only be offered during the first day of the fair.

Elizabeth Knurek, health promotions coordinator for the Student Health Center, said the focus of the fair is to get students to improve their self-image and to ignore media influences on body shape.

“We are seeing an epidemic [of disordered eating] in this state and across the nation, thanks to messages from the media and our culture,” Knurek said.

Morse said eating disorders are largely influenced by the media.

“The media plays into the unrealistic weight ideal that so many people strive for. As a society, we need to question that part of our culture more openly,” Morse said.

Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are the most widely recognized disorders, Morse said, but compulsive exercising and binge eating are also major problems that will be talked about at the fair.

“Between 8 and 15 percent of students on campuses across the country suffer from disordered eating, but that depends on your definition. I think it increases dramatically if you include individuals at high risk,” she said. “As the dieting industry has tripled, reported cases of anorexia have doubled.”

Knurek said one of the main goals of the fair is to give more exposure to these less-reported cases of disordered eating.

Morse said the more standard eating disorders, such as anorexia, will be a major focus of the fair because those diseases are having a serious effect on the country.

“Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychological disorder,” Morse said. “The sooner an individual gets help, the more positive the outcome.”

Morse said if an individual is identified during the screening process as having an eating disorder, he or she will be offered treatment and support.

“We provide a treatment-team approach,” she said. “This includes a referral to a dietitian and possibly a physician, in addition to our group and individual counseling.”

The counseling would involve trying to change how the individual thinks about food, Morse said.

“Because individuals suffering from disordered eating have a very distorted view of food, we try to help them look at food in a more realistic manner. This enables the person to gain control from the inside instead of being controlled by external factors, like calories or numbers on the scale,” she said.

Each year, the Student Counseling Service puts on a program for National Eating Disorders Awareness Week focusing on body image and disordered eating, Morse said.

Morse said free, confidential eating-disorder screenings will be held Feb. 23 at the Richmond Center, 600 Fifth St., and at the West Ames McFarland Clinic, 3600 W. Lincoln Way.

The Love Your Body Fair is sponsored by the Student Counseling Service, the Student Health Center’s Wellness Center, the American Cancer Society and the Student Health Center Advisory Committee.