UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Each year, National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (EDAW), held this year from Feb. 24 to March 2, amplifies efforts to educate the public about eating disorders. But while eating disorders have the second-highest mortality rate of any mental health issue and result in one death every 52 minutes, they remain widely misunderstood. A collaboration between Penn State students and White Pine Center for Healing, located in Erie, Pennsylvania, is helping to change that.
White Pine Center, the region’s only eating disorder clinic, supports individuals dealing with eating disorders, body image issues, weight stigma, and trauma. The center provides evidence-based prevention programs, tailored for schools, families and workplaces, designed to prevent body-image issues and eating disorders and is currently developing a comprehensive online resource to make its services more widely accessible.
During fall 2024, Ilona Ballreich, director of the Sustainable Communities Collaborative (SCC) at Penn State Sustainability, facilitated a partnership between White Pine Center and students in Tara Wyckoff’s "Public Relations Media and Methods" class. At the end of the semester, the students delivered a complete media and advocacy plan for White Pine.
“This partnership totally changed the trajectory for White Pine Center,” said Executive Director Mary Machuga. “Tara's class has enabled us to broaden our reach from local to statewide, by providing media contacts for the entire state and alerting us to relevant bills in front of the state legislature. So far, we have used the media contacts to introduce White Pine and announce the lighting of Erie’s Bicentennial Tower in honor of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. And we are now reaching out to state officials regarding relevant bills.”
Wyckoff, an associate teaching professor of advertising and public relations in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, has been working with the SCC for over five years.
“The opportunity to put the principles of effective communication to work in a very real, tangible way is invaluable to me as an educator,” she said. “The final project was an advocacy plan for engaging media surrounding legislation that impacts funding and awareness of eating disorders across the state. We researched bills, sorted out what legislators were serving on which committees and how we could work with the media to get our client’s message out. The students found it empowering to see the impact that advocacy communications can have.”
This point was echoed by Sae’Awzha Williams, a fourth-year public relations major, who said she appreciated learning how nonprofits engage in policy advocacy.
“A piece of legislation I worked with was Senate Bill 294, which would require insurance companies to cover the costs of eating disorder treatments,” she said. “I found this especially valuable because I gained insight into how bills are introduced and voted into law. It was incredibly interesting to feel somewhat a part of the legal process that could in turn save lives.”
The students said they also gained an appreciation of the wide range of people affected by eating disorders and body image issues.
“One of the most valuable lessons learned early in the students’ exploration of this topic was debunking the stigma that the target audience for body dysmorphia treatment was exclusively teenage girls,” said Wyckoff. “As they explored research and uncovered the incidence of eating disorders impacting communities such as senior citizens and veterans, the students challenged their assumptions and learned how to uncover unique ways to reframe the topic.”
Machuga noted that beyond leading to eating disorders, poor body image is also a major risk factor for substance abuse, self-harm and unsafe sexual behaviors, and that a high number of students report missing school because of poor body image. One recent study found that more than half of the 11- and 12-year-old male and female students surveyed had body image dissatisfaction, which increases with age. Another study of adolescents aged 12–19 found a strong association between students perceiving themselves as overweight and excessive school absenteeism.
On a broader scale, the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders (STRIPED) at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which provides state-by-state reports on the social and economic costs of eating disorders, states that 9% Pennsylvanians (1,127,383 people) will have an eating disorder in their lifetime, resulting in a yearly economic cost of $2.5 billion.
But as the students learned, public relations efforts can genuinely influence the way an issue is perceived, leading to meaningful change.
“Working with White Pine was the most impactful experience I’ve had throughout my time at Penn State,” said Nicole Joyce, a fourth-year student majoring in public relations. “They care deeply about breaking the stigma surrounding eating disorders, especially for communities that are often overlooked. I loved working on public relations materials that could truly make a difference in the lives of people struggling, and seeing how public relations strategies could be used to shift perception of eating disorders.”
Estefania Liendo, a fourth-year student majoring in public relations with a minor in digital media trends and analytics, shared a similar response.
“Working with a community partner that had a communications goal for us to address was the most helpful and educational experience I've had at Penn State,” she said. “White Pine’s work goes beyond just treatment; it’s about creating awareness and ensuring that people don’t have to face recovery alone. Working with White Pine made the work feel more purposeful.”
It also helped the students recognize their own power, which is central to the Sustainable Communities Collaborative's mission in promoting student success and thriving communities.
“One of the most surprising takeaways from this experience was realizing how much of an impact we could make, even as students,” said Joyce. “This experience has solidified my passion for public relations. I hope that in my future career, I can work on causes or campaigns that truly make a difference in people’s lives.”
For more information about the Sustainable Communities Collaborative, please contact Ilona Ballreich at ixb20@psu.edu.