Art improves students’ mental health

MNDaily: Art improves students’ mental health
Boynton is using an art exhibit to raise awareness of eating disorders.

Some patients with eating disorders are finding solace in an unlikely place: visual art.

“Art gives them a nonverbal approach to communicate the difficulties that they’re struggling with,” said Nicola Demonte, health educator and art therapist at Park Nicollet Melrose Institute.

As part of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, Boynton Health Service will host a reception Wednesday for “Reflections: Healing Eating Disorders Through Art.”

The exhibit, Demonte said, reflects “what people are experiencing with eating disorders.”

In all, it will include more than 20 pieces by anonymous Melrose Institute patients with eating disorders and a painting by a University of Minnesota student artist.

Architecture sophomore Beau Sinchai’s painting was chosen from a pool of University students by a panel of representatives from Boynton, the Melrose Institute and University student group Active Minds.

Alice Johnson, senior coordinator of Active Minds, said she hopes the event will lessen the stigma associated with eating disorders and raise the discourse about mental health illness.

“We really want to connect students with the resources that are there on campus and have people be open enough to access them,” Johnson said.

Jon Hallberg will host Hippocrates Café afterward, a combination of drama, literature and music to spark conversation and understanding of eating disorders, Boynton Mental Health Clinic Director Gary Christenson said.

Boynton Mental Health Clinic offers group therapy for students with eating disorders, in addition to eating disorder assessments and medical and nutritional consultations.

Boynton sometimes refers patients to the Melrose Institute or The Emily Program, both of which offer services specifically for those with eating disorders.

Demonte, who is the curator of the exhibit, engages his patients in art therapy, a hands-on process he developed there about two years ago, which he said has a positive physiological effect.

It’s common for eating disorder patients to say, “I feel really relaxed right now” when they participate in art therapy, Demonte said.

Sinchai uses her artwork to fight stress too. She said she feels like many people don’t realize the impact art can have.

“I feel like art has been overlooked,” Sinchai said.

Of 2,612 randomly surveyed students at the University, 4.8 percent of women and 0.5 percent of men reported being diagnosed with anorexia or bulimia in their lifetime, according to the 2010 College Student Health Survey, but that may not accurately represent the number of students with body image concern and eating disorder behavior.

“We suspect there are more students dealing with an eating disorder than reported on the survey,” Christenson said.

He also said the diagnostic system may have “set the threshold too high” for anorexia or bulimia. The most common eating disorder, “not otherwise specified,” he said, is diagnosed in students who fall short of one or two criteria for anorexia or bulimia.

“That doesn’t mean they don’t actually have an issue,” Christenson said.

Demonte said studies show 4.5 to 18 percent of women and 0.4 percent of men have a history of bulimia by their first year in college , but many students’ eating disorder behavior, initiated by busy schedules, irregular eating habits and compulsory exercise issues, “flies under the radar.”