High School Principal Draws Notice of Rise in Eating Disorders

Its imposing tower is an Orange County landmark, and the ever-active wells on and around the campus have given the school its “Oilers” nickname.

The glimmering Pacific is just a few blocks away. Sea gulls fly daily over the classic Spanish architecture of the buildings.

Huntington Beach High School is a pretty place that serves a predominantly middle- and upper-middle-class community. At noon, its students gather on the attractive quad, laughing, playing impromptu games and sampling lunches they’ve bought or brought from home.

Starvation, surely, is only something that’s grimly discussed in the school’s current events classes--something as remote as Ethiopia.

But a form of starvation exists at Huntington Beach High School. To her horror, Principal Ann N. Chlebicki has found a widening circle of known or suspected cases of “excellent students” who are starving themselves. The students, primarily female and from stable, well-educated families, are suffering from two eating disorders.

The two maladies have Latin names: anorexia nervosa and bulimia. The first involves severe dieting and fasting; the second consists of eating large amounts of food, often sweets, followed by regurgitation.

One student has already been hospitalized, and at one point was in critical condition, with anorexia. Two other suspected cases of anorexia or bulimia have been reported by the school to parents. And Chlebicki believes this is only the tip of the iceberg.

“The students tell me there are many more cases out there,” she said. “I’m also hearing more now from parents. It’s a problem that’s surfacing in schools just as drugs did about 10 years ago.

“This is not just a problem at Huntington Beach High School. It’s a problem at all the high schools, and we’re just learning the extent of it.”

Ann Chlebicki has become an Orange County crusader against the dangers of students who, undetected, may be starving themselves.

In a recent monthly newsletter to parents, Chlebicki related how she learned of the worst case discovered so far at Huntington Beach High School.

A distraught father came to her office in October, Chlebicki said. The father told her that his 15-year-old daughter, a freshman, had just been hospitalized--against the girl’s wishes--because she would not stop obsessive dieting and exercising. In four months, she had lost 31% of her body weight.

The girl was initially placed in a psychiatric ward, but was later moved to a hospital whenshe became critically ill. “She’s still critically ill and is likely to be hospitalized five months,” Chlebicki said in a recent interview. “I’ve been to see her in the hospital, and I’ve got to tell you that I was surprised. She still doesn’t look emaciated, even though she only weighs 71 pounds. I expected to see someone who was gaunt and skeletal. But this is how anorexia can fool you. The students look thin, but not sickly.”

In her newsletter, Chlebicki told how she made inquiries about the possibility of other food-abuse cases on campus after she found out about the critically ill 15-year-old.

“I approached another young girl in the quad whom I suspected might have an eating disorder,” Chlebicki wrote. “She was surprisingly frank with me. ‘Where can we go?’ she asked. ‘There are lots of us on campus, but none of us wants to admit it. We all want to look good.’ ”

The desire to “look good,” Chlebicki said, is the key motivation of students who starve themselves.

“Look at all the advertisements,” she said. “Society seems to be telling women that the only way to be considered beautiful is to be thin. Very thin.”

But Chlebicki said she is also learning of deeper psychological reasons that may be compelling young people to risk their health and their lives as they starve themselves.

“One student here has a sister who was anorexic,” Chlebicki said. “After a great deal of psychiatric help, the sister revealed that she was not eating because it was the only thing in her life over which she had control. She said she thought everybody else was controlling her school and her sports and her activities, and that she was having to live up to all these expectations. But she said no one could control her eating.”

Huntington Beach High has an active, successful program in combatting drug abuse. Chlebicki said that early this fall, as she was consulting with student leaders about their role in the fight against drugs, she got yet another indication of how anorexia and bulimia are big, but unseen, problems on campus.

“These bright, achieving ASB (Associated Student Body) students told me, ‘The big problem isn’t drugs anymore, Mrs. Chlebicki,’ ” she recalled. “They told me that they thought a bigger problem was the girls who weren’t eating or who would eat and then go relieve themselves of the food (by regurgitating) in the restroom.”

Chlebicki said that the freshman girl who is now hospitalized was a peer of the student leaders. “And that girl, I found out, had 15 other girls who would guard for her and others in the restroom as they relieved themselves of anything they’d eaten,” she said.

The principal said that she learned startling things as she inquired about anorexia and bulimia on the campus. For instance, she said, she had wondered how anorexic or bulimic girls could hide their malady and still take part in strenuous physical education classes.

“I found out that the (anorexic) girls chew gum just before exercising,” Chlebicki said. “They learn exactly how many calories they’ll need, apparently, and they provide themselves just that. But think how dangerous that can be.”

Chlebicki said Huntington Beach High has not discovered any male students who are starving themselves.

“It’s predominantly something that affects girls,” she said. “I’ve heard that some boys at other schools, especially boys taking gymnastics, might be suffering eating disorders. But we don’t have gymnastics at this school, and I haven’t found any information from teachers or PE instructors of any of our boys who might have these problems.”

Under Chlebicki’s leadership, Huntington Beach High is trying to alert students and parents alike to the symptoms of anorexia and bulimia and the associated dangers.

She acknowledges, however, that the school can’t solve existing cases of eating disorders. “We can’t do anything ourselves,” she said. “All we can do is to alert parents if we suspect cases.”

Even parents are relatively powerless, Chlebicki said: “You can’t force a child to eat. Often it takes psychiatric help.” Such help can be very expensive, she noted. In the case of the critically ill anorexic student, she said, the father told her the hospitalization was not covered by his insurance and would cost more than $30,000.

Still, Chlebicki said, the problem cannot be tackled until the students who may be suffering from the eating disorders are identified and their parents are notified.

Toward this end, Huntington Beach High has had special faculty meetings on how to pinpoint possible symptoms of anorexia and bulimia. Chlebicki said she has enlisted the support of student organizations.

Chlebicki said that since she mailed her November newsletter on the subject of food abuse, two parents contacted her, saying they have found signs of anorexia or bulimia in their children.

The newsletter describes signs to watch for to detect possible cases of adolescent eating disorders. “One of our campus volunteers combed through books on the subject, and that’s where I got the list of suggested reading material and the characteristics of the disorders to put in my newsletter,” Chlebicki said.

The characteristics of anorexia, as noted in the newsletter, include weight loss of 25% or more, cessation of menstrual periods, obsessive exercising for hours at a time, grayish or yellowish skin, sores on the face or in the mouth, and hostility toward anyone who tries to interfere with the eating pattern.

Anorexics also often create diversions at mealtime to hide the fact they are not eating and will try to vomit secretly if they are forced to eat by their parents, the newsletter notes.

Bulimics make vomiting a key part of their obsession, the newsletter notes. Persons with this eating disorder secretly stash favorite foods and gorge themselves periodically. But they immediately regurgitate the food and also often use laxatives, diuretics and enemas.

“People with anorexia deny there is anything wrong with them,” Chlebicki said. “People with bulimia know that something is wrong, but they don’t know what to do about it.”

Although statistical data on anorexics and bulimics are sketchy at all levels--national, state and local--a study of 1,268 Chicago high school girls, ages 13 to 18, reported in 1983 that about 8% were bulimic.

Physicians familiar with the eating disorders say they believe that anorexia nervosa and bulimia are much more widespread than once believed.

Thus, Huntington Beach High, as Chlebicki noted, is not likely to be unusual in its number of students with eating disorders. What is unusual about the high school is that its principal has called attention to the problem.

Said Chlebicki in her newsletter to parents: “Eating disorders, like drugs and alcohol, are part of the world in which our young people live. Our school is striving to be a caring place where students, parents, staff and the community may meet these challenges and overcome them. We invite you to join us.”