Students crowded into a small room in White-Gravenor Tuesday evening to hear panelists give personal accounts of eating disorders and decry ignorance of the disorders.

Panelists said they hoped to dispel myths and misconceptions about the disorders and their origins.

The panel, organized by Students Ending Eating Disturbances, focused on the medical and psychological aspects of eating disorder with two Georgetown students giving their first-hand experience in coping with eating disorders.

Psychology Professor Alan Lipman opened the presentation by speaking at length on the psychological background behind the disorders.

The panelists for the lecture entitled “Eating Disorders: Hope and Awareness,” were Lipman, McCulloch, the two Georgetown undergraduates and Carol Day, a nutritionist with Health Education Services.

Lipman spoke about his experience in an in-patient psychiatric hospital, where he encountered a teenager who had been admitted with an eating disorder.

“She looked about 12 years-old,” he said, “and she was fervently driven to get that weight down.” The girl died soon after, weighing less than 70 pounds, Lipman said.

According to him, 20 percent of people diagnosed with anorexia nervosa will eventually die as a direct result of the disease, and five percent will die within five years of developing the disease.

Lipman then picked up a paper plate, and said he hoped his story explained why no one should be ignorant of these problems. The plate had read “If you make yourself sick, it’s your own fault. Eat – Just do it,” and had been brought from a table in Red Square hat SEED set up to allow students to express their opinions on eating disorders.

Lipman went on to explain the two major eating disorders in this disease category: anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

He said bulimia nervosa affects nearly eight percent of women in college populations, a figure he said was “probably underrated,” due to the denial of the disease by many who suffer from it. Lipman characterized some of the characteristics of the disorder as vomiting, using diuretics or laxatives to reduce absorption of food, anxiety or social phobia and excessive exercise.

Anorexia has many of the same symptoms, though anorexia sufferers do not binge and purge, but refuse to eat, Lipman said. He said statistics indicate that 3.7 percent of women in college show signs of anorexia. Many times “they do punishing exercise,” indicating that those with the disease will many times faint or pass out from exercising on such little nutrition.

“This is one of the ways we can deal with stress,” he said. “We can control something, we can control – food. “

“Some people implicate society [as the cause of the diseases],” Lipman added. “These things aren’t that simple.”

Pseudo-mutualism in the family is a major cause of the diseases, he said. According to Lipman, pseudo-mutualism is an ideology that the family is supposed to be harmonious and appear perfect, which directly disallows expressing emotions. The emotional instability caused by this can bring on disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.

Lipman ended his lecture with a synopsis of different treatments for both bulimia and anorexia.

Professor Myrtle McCulloch, a clinical assistant professor in the school of nursing described the physiological effects that the diseases can have on individuals.

Two Georgetown students, Danielle and Bruck, recounted their struggle with the diseases, and how the diseases began during high school, progressed and even relapsed in college. They preferred to be identified only by their first names. Both said their peers were key players in helping them through the ordeal.

The two students also said that though they will never be completely cured, they are dealing with the disease better than in the past. They credited this to both peer and professional help and encouraged those who are dealing with the diseases to seek help that they trust. They also advocated finding a professional therapist that they feel comfortable with.