Introduction

"She's anorexic!"

"Maybe she's bulimic!

When my middle school students jokingly described their friends or our class hamsters in this manner, I realized that they did not know the gravity of an eating disorder. As a person struggling with recovery from an eating disorder that almost killed me, I realized that I could do something about it or I could stay silent and allow their ignorance to grow.

When having to develop a webquest for a class from the University of Northern Iowa's professional development department, I knew that if I didn't do eating disorders, I would be letting down all the people who have helped me in recovery, all the young men and women (boys and girls) that I have met through the recovery process, and mostly, the ones who did not win the battle, but succumbed to this insideous disease.

This lesson is about how devastating an eating disorder can be. It has students examine the psychological as well as the physical effects. Ultimately, with this new-found knowledge, they have to decide how to present this in a public-service announcement.