Helping Teachers Learn to Identify Eating Disorders

Reprinted from Eating Disorders Review
May/June 2004 Volume 15, Number 3
©2004 Gürze Books

Secondary school teachers may be in a unique position to help identify students with eating disorders, but often they are unaware that such problems exist in their student population. Dr. Niva Piran and Erica A. Layton of the University of Toronto recently described a study in which they interviewed 10 teachers to determine their experiences with identifying and acting upon student eating disorders.

Two phases: identification and action

The teachers were interviewed about their experiences during a qualitative, transcribed interview. The process of identifying a student with an eating disorder was then broken down into two distinct phases: the identification phase and the action phase. Each phase then was analyzed to see what helped and what hindered teachers from identifying students with disordered eating.

Factors that helped teachers recognize students with eating disorders included a close student-teacher relationship, overt symptoms in students, the teacher’s personal eating disorders issues, and a heightened awareness of eating disorders in general.

Factors that kept teachers from identifying students with eating disorders included a distant student-teacher relationship, hidden symptoms among students and the teacher’s lack of general knowledge about eating disorders.

Few teachers referred students for help

When the researchers evaluated the action phase, or the actions the teacher took after identifying the problem, they learned that the only teachers who referred students for help were physical education teachers. The researchers surmised that the reason for this might be that physical education teaches felt more competent and comfortable handling such issues because they have more training and interest in health. And what kept the other teachers from referring students for help? The teachers reported that they believed that it would be inappropriate to intervene; they also had a fear of breaking trust with the student by mentioning the disorder. Others reported having a fear of doing the wrong thing, lack of confidence in their observations, lack of training, and lack of time.

The authors feel that teachers could benefit from special training to help them recognize eating disorders and then take appropriate action.

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