1st Place, Environmental, Health or Science
2021-22, Division 4, News Writing
By Rita Lowenschuss
The Communicator
Ann Arbor Community HS
When Chrissy Kuiper had to spend a day in bed, she knew something was wrong. She spent the previous day going on a long run, doing ab and cardio workouts and 45-second sprints, and woke up with a fever and heat exhaustion.
“This was a turning point for me,” Kuiper said. “It put into perspective that I couldn’t [push my body] that much.”
During Covid-19, Kuiper began a toxic relationship; her boyfriend would tell her that she needed to lose weight and that she was too big of a person. These comments made Kuiper want to make her body smaller through whatever means necessary.
“Being isolated at my house and having someone else telling me that [I needed to lose weight wasn’t] very good for me,” Kuiper said. “It caused me to start to do things to lose weight because I wanted to change my body.”
Kuiper is not alone in those being affected by the isolation of Covid-19. Alexandra Crosson, CEO of MYBody, an eating disorder treatment clinic, reports that there has been a 400% increase in 12 to 18 year olds seeking MYBody’s services. The Covid-19 pandemic has brought with it many disruptions to normal life, which can negatively impact teenagers’ mental health.
“Social networks have been really challenged,” Crosson said. “Being at home in potentially disordered, dysfunctional family systems [leads to] less coping skills or strategies to be had [and] less freedom and flexibility to manage mental health.”
Being isolated during Covid-19 limited Kuiper’s resources to deal with her unhealthy relationship and kept her trapped inside her own head. She started to strictly count calories and when that didn’t work, she stopped eating full meals and began to work out for up to three hours a day. Kuiper stopped working out constantly when she experienced heat exhaustion, but she still wouldn’t eat, since she was consistently losing weight.
“I was seeing results, so I wasn’t going to stop,” Kuiper said.
For Kuiper, social media negatively affected her mental health and body image. She found herself comparing her body to the unrealistic body standards that social media apps such as Instagram and TikTok constantly portray.
“All these people [on social media] are popular because of the way they look, so I thought I needed to look like them too,” Kuiper said.
Kuiper has also experienced a lot of misinformation about food and dieting on social media. She frequently sees disordered eating habits being presented as healthy or aesthetic, such as intermittent fasting. This is a trend in which people do not eat for a specific period of time, which, according to Kuiper, is often portrayed by influencers on social media as a healthy eating habit.
According to Kuiper, social media “influencers” can greatly affect teenagers, especially teenage girls. Often, the content that they are posting does not share the truth of what is going on behind the scenes. Kuiper says that this makes teenagers our age assume that bodies like the ones they see on social media are easily attainable, and that disordered eating is the way to get these bodies.
Allison Mankowski, a registered dietician who works with teenagers that have eating disorders, says that social media has always had an effect on body image. During the pandemic, this effect has become much more prominent, as Covid-19 has increased the usage of social media apps. According to Mankowski, isolation has created little opportunity for connection outside of the internet, greatly increasing the exposure and the impact of it.
Despite the factors working against her, Kuiper recognized that she needed help and was able to work through her negative body image. She ended her toxic relationship and opened up about her mental health to her friends. To this day, Kuiper and her best friend, who also struggled with disordered eating, send each other pictures of the food they eat throughout the day in order to support each other in recovery.
“It shows the other person that we’re eating and that it’s okay to eat, and that you need to feed your body,” Kuiper said.
Social media also contains many body-positive communities. In these cases, social media allows people like Kuiper to connect with others in similar situations and to find resources in times of crisis. It also creates a space to emphasize that all bodies have worth.
“It’s becoming more accepted to have bodies in all shapes and sizes,” Mankowski said. “There’s been a lot of promotion around loving yourself and the importance of mental health over trying to look or fit into a certain size.”
There are many resources for eating disorder treatment, such as the National Eating Disorders Association and the body acceptance movement. For Kuiper, therapy helped her identify and deal with her disordered eating, as well as give her perspective on what she truly wants in life and how to put herself over her weight.
“[Therapy] taught me I don’t have to please everyone,” Kuiper said. “I love doing things for other people, but it taught me to do things for myself too.”
Kuiper now feels more confident in her body image and remains hopeful in her recovery. Although returning to school and entering the world’s new normal has brought increased anxiety to Kuiper, she is excited for what the future will bring.
NW-17. Environmental, Health or Science
This story will focus on an environmental, health or science topic. It can be a straight news story or an investigative piece. Submit a PDF of the print page(s) on which the story was published or the URL to the story on an online news site.
JUDGING CRITERIA
- Topic relevant to the school or students and covers health, science or environmental story that is informative
- Sharp, attention-getting lead grabs reader and arouses curiosity
- Shows thorough reporting skills through research and interviewing
- Effective use of facts/quotes from both primary and secondary sources
- Balanced, fair and sensitive presentation
- Sentences, paragraphs of varied length; written clearly, concisely and vividly
- Proper diction/grammar; use of third person