For Joanna Popper, Weinberg ’94, the struggle with anorexia and bulimia began during her junior year at Northwestern.
It ended eight years later.
“I said, ‘You know what, I’m getting too old for this,'” said Popper, who now lives in Miami and is a senior marketing manager at DHL, a shipping company.
With the help of a therapist and nutritionist, Popper improved her eating habits and is trying to help others do the same.
Popper produced “The ABC’s of Eating Disorders,” a documentary which features experts and patients discussing anorexia, bulimia and compulsive overeating. The film, released in November, has been shown in treatment centers across the country.
“The idea is to get the education out and let people know they’re not alone, to encourage recovery,” Popper said.
She worked with filmmaker Arne Zimmermann and Zakto Films Productions on the project, which took six months to complete.
Popper interviewed women and men of various races, ranging from their 20s to 50s. Her subjects included friends, referrals from friends and patients at treatment centers.
“Typically in documentaries like this, it’s about the housewife, the teen or the college girl,” Popper said. “We wanted to show that it wasn’t just about this one group.”
Popper’s college experience helped guide her project. Though many of her NU friends grappled with eating disorders, little was done to advocate the disorders’ dangers, Popper said.
Eating disorders remain alive at NU today, said Dr. Elizabeth Gobbi, a psychiatrist at NU’s Counseling and Psychological Services who works with many patients with eating disorders. But Gobbi said she has seen more students seek help early for their eating disorders today than when she started at NU 10 years ago.
The issue isn’t unique to NU. About 91 percent of college women said they tried dieting to control their weight, the National Eating Disorders Association reported. In some cases, dieting is the start of an eating disorder, Gobbi said.
Being away from family members, who often help track eating habits, and pressure to succeed can contribute to a disorder’s development, Gobbi said.
“A lot of students feel like to really succeed, they need to do well academically, they need to be involved socially, they need to look good,” Gobbi said. “They’re going for the package.”
Popper said cases of eating disorders are rising, but she is trying to reverse the trend. She has spoken twice at the University of Miami’s chapter of her sorority, Delta Gamma, and was interviewed on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 series, “Starved for Perfection”.
But denial remains a huge obstacle in reforming girls with eating disorders, Popper said. In her film, she aimed to alert viewers by showing accounts of women who have suffered and overcome the illnesses.
“(I wanted to hear) people talk about it in their own words,” Popper said. “They can relate to the psychological stuff they’ve gone through, to experiences in life, to ‘Wow, I’ve done that, too.'”
To view a trailer or order a copy of “The ABCs of Eating Disorders,” visit www.zakto.com/abc.
Reach Francesca Jarosz at [email protected].
