Is the Military Creating ‘A Perfect Storm’ For Eating Disorders?

TOO MUCH WEIGHT TO CARRY –

April 15, 2022 – To Rand, that meant meeting the strict military standards for weight and body fat percentages. At the same time, she was coping with a sexual assault that happened while she was in college.

She says the assault affected her eating habits.

“You just want to obsess over something other than fear and panic or sadness and guilt,” she says. “So you try to place this moral high ground on food and fitness.”

People like Rand, who develop harmful eating habits during their service, have not received much attention from the Department of Defense or Veterans Affairs. But a study among Iraq and Afghanistan war era veterans by the VA in Connecticut shows that they experience bulimia at about three times the civilian rate. Some develop eating disorders while they’re in the military, and others grapple with eating habits after they’re out.

“I was seeing a very high rate of binge eating disorder in the veteran population, but I also wanted to know about these other disorders,” says Robin Masheb, a research psychologist and the founder of the Veterans Initiative for Eating and Weight. It’s one of the few programs that studies eating disorders in veterans.