College is an extremely dangerous time for eating disorders. The transition from high school to college is stressful and more often than not leads to poor eating habits. Moving from dependence to independence is a huge step. With independence comes a newfound freedom full of opportunity, but it also comes with a fall. College is a whole new world and environment. College students go through a range of emotions ranging from homesickness, peer pressure, responsibility, time management, and trying to juggle academic life and social life. Poor eating habits or eating disorders serve as a coping mechanism to deal with stress, overwhelming emotions, or alarming events. So it's not shocking that eating disorders develop during the college years. Although many people think that eating disorders are just problems related to food, exercise, and weight, it's actually much more than that. Eating disorders most often show complicated psychological problems, such as: depression, low self-esteem, poor body image, and separation from loved ones. In all the chaos of college, eating is something a student may be solely responsible for. As stated in Is There a Perfectionist in All of Us? “We propose that individual ways of coping and regulating emotions throughout the day are more likely to account for the dynamics of daily perfectionism… perfectionism over restriction could be understood as a compensatory and derivative attempt to restore feelings of control.” (Boone et al) Managing their eating behavior when everything is out of control and out of place in their life can give students a sense of power and control. In all the freedoms and choices a college student can face, food is important. The campus cafeteria selection... middle of paper... dolized "We turn skeletons into goddesses and look at them as if they can teach us how not to be needy." (Hornbacher) In college not only do students have the heavy burden of supporting their academic endeavors, but they also face social standards. During college, students gather in many social circles such as: sports, organizations, fraternities, and sororities. For some students this is the norm, but for others it could create an eating disorder by increasing the importance of physical appearance. Because they are not used to the rigorous amount of judgments and acts of superficiality. A study examining the effects of peer pressure on weight identification noted that “concerns about one's weight, how they appear to others, and the perception that their peers want them to be thin are significantly related to child-controlling behavior. weight". (Squires)