Many students who transition from high school to post-secondary tend to struggle with their diet and start to develop certain eating disorders. And when students try to go to the Doctors office there met with massive wait times. But now that might not be the case anymore for students.
A new medical clinic at Western’s Research park that specializes in eating disorders, focuses on creating an open space for students to feel at home talking about problems they have with eating.
The clinic known as ‘The Harbor’, was created by western professor Dr. Robbie Campbell who is also the Founder and Director of the Eating Disorders Foundation of Canada.
“This population of teens and people in the early 20s, they experience a lot of body image issues. They’re changing physically and they’re changing emotionally. It’s a new place, they’re going to university so, a lot of them are dieting or making restrictive choices to their intake, especially now that many of them are not living in their parents’ homes and they’re cooking on their own,” says nutritionist/Dietician, Saima Khan
“They’re choosing their own foods, and having this clinic with eating disorders gives awareness, it’s beneficial and it’s educating,” Khan continues.
With the winter season coming soon, she also spoke about how the new season changes and how this might affect students as well.
“I would say with the winter season coming along, a lot of people try to be less active because it’s getting colder and since they’re less active they could be experiencing some sort of weight fluctuations or gain and that could affect them eating less right to compensate for the weak fluctuation.”
doctors clipboard
“I think it’s very common for students to fall into these disorders such as bulimia, binge eating or even restrictive eating because the whole-body image issue of trying to fit in, and they do it more for aesthetics than for health, so that’s something students and teenagers can fall into.”
“It affects their academics and their schooling. If you’re not eating well, it will affect your life and your relationships so, this is a very susceptible, vulnerable population that we could be targeting. Especially young women when they don’t take care of their health and don’t eat healthy food, it could lead to development of osteoporosis.” Khan said.
Khan finished by talking about why students struggle to reach out, and what might be some ways that they can use to reach out.
“I think there’s stigma seeking professional help, especially with people in their early 20s, so, there’ll be barriers that need to be broken to reach out and come into the clinic. and if people do that, then there’s less stigma around seeking help, so they’ll benefit from it.”
“I feel like if there’s enough marketing done to get them to know that there’s a clinic, you know, on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, wherever students are or even posters because they know that there’s a clinic available, and they can reach out for help.”
Although office furniture is pushed back, current patients are being seen in the space beside the clinic. Throughout the facility there are many new technological components that will be used, including video conference rooms for patients to be able to participate in appointments both virtually and in-person.
Post-secondary students who choose to visit the clinic will be assisted with payment by the Eating Disorders Foundations of Canada.
