ary Adkins speaks with an air of confidence and voices her opinion in a way that makes people want to listen--and take action. From her first letters to the editor to her column in The Chronicle this fall, Adkins has commanded an attentive audience.
Her now-famous column about her own struggle with an eating disorder was published Nov. 1 with an invitation for students, faculty and administrators alike to send her their own stories about battles with eating disorders.
She wrote, "I have a vision of incorporating your messages into what I hope will be a vehicle for change--something that none of us can do alone. There's not room to discuss it in this column, but it's an idea I'm ready to pursue wholeheartedly. We can't change society, but we can change Duke. It will just take a lot of courage, creativity, and a little effort."
Tomorrow, exactly four months later, Adkins' vision will begin to be realized. That vision she mentioned turned into a play called The Perks of Disordered Eating, an artistic effort she hopes will provoke changes at Duke among students and the administrators.
It all started in the fall of 2001 when Tony Brown, professor of the practice of public policy, asked Adkins--along with the co-author and co-director of the play, Adam Bloomfield--to be in his Enterprising Leadership Incubator program, which encourages students to take the initiative to turn ideas into actions.
Adkins said, "I was involved in Tony Brown's program and I was in a Women as Leaders class and I had a big project for it that had to do with women on campus, so everything was converging. And I had my column." Those circumstances got the wheels turning for Adkins and friend Adam Bloomfield about ways to change Duke.
When the time came for Adkins to write her Nov. 1 column, she couldn't do it. "I couldn't think of anything but what I'd eaten for dinner. If I write about anything other than this right now, it's going to be terrible." She started writing about her experiences and about the problem with eating disorders on Duke's campus. Then came the invitation to all readers asking for their own stories.
Adkins and Bloomfield were overwhelmed with responses. That day, e-mail began pouring in from students and faculty members, as well as from Durham residents. Her voice had been heard.
However, Adkins and Bloomfield received no response from one key group. "It was surprising the people we didn't hear from. We didn't hear from any administrators. None. And since then we've sought out administrators and invited them to the show," Adkins said. "I know Dean Sue [Wasiolek] is coming, but so far no one else has RSVPed. That's a piece of it that's been really disappointing--the
And since Adkins' seminal column, the Duke Student Government Legislature passed a resolution in December requesting a coordinator for eating-disorder programming.
Regardless of administrative attention, Adkins and Bloomfield tackled their vision of a "vehicle for change" together. The two found many others who had a personal investment in the issue and wanted to help their cause. With the aid of 10 students, Adkins and Bloomfield collected over 100 stories from Duke students through interviews, e-mails and letters. Each story was different. "We received all these responses which just bowled us over with the tenderness and the desperation and the wide variety of emotions that appeared in these people's different stories from all walks of life here."
Perhaps the most inspiring story is Adkins' own. After returning home after her freshman year, Adkins was lying in bed one night, staring at the ceiling and thinking about the possibility of mentioning what she was feeling to her mother. She wanted to tell her about all the times they'd had lunch together and she'd gotten quiet all of the sudden--that food consumed her thoughts and that she was terribly unhappy.
"I actually prayed and said to God, OIf I need to tell her, then send her in--she needs to come in right now.' And she came in. It was really weird because it was one o'clock in the morning and she just came in and stood there," Adkins said.
Adkins told her mother she had an eating disorder and began the healing process.
"It was really weird saying those words in reference to myself because even though I was aware I had a problem, I'd never thought about it in those terms. That was a huge jump into a new phase of life. Everything changed because I was beginning to make an attempt to live a completely different way." After talking with her mother, Mary told a few of her closest friends, Bloomfield included. He helped her with the decision to publish her column.
Then the two began their adventure of what is now The Perks of Disordered Eating, which they wrote together from the compiled responses. The play focuses on Duke's environment of eating disorders--on young women striving for perfection in a place where being bright is only par for the course.
The Perks of Disordered Eating can almost be described as a satire. The stories were not overly depressing, and as a result, the play isn't either.
Each character in the play has his own separate story about disordered eating, including two male characters. Adkins and Bloomfield both stress that all those involved in the production all are personally invested in the issue, which was important for them.
The Perks of Disordered Eating gives the audience an overwhelmingly accurate sense of what it's like to suffer from an eating disorder. One particularly memorable scene is set at Elmo's Diner with three girls and one guy. We hear their thoughts as they look at the menu, decide what to order and make their painful way through the meal. It's quite discouraging to think that so many women and men go through this at the dinner table. It's even more discouraging to know that the thoughts we hear are actual thoughts written down by people immediately following a meal at Elmo's. The message? The problem is real--and Adkins and Bloomfield are forcing people to take notice.
The primary goal of the production is to give people who are still silent the extra push to speak to someone about their eating disorders as well as to make talking about eating disorders less taboo. Adkins and Bloomfield believe the key to their efforts seems to be in more administrative attention and increased awareness of the resources on campus.
Adkins said she didn't even know Counseling and Psychological Services existed when she wrote her column or if there were any resources available for people with eating disorders on campus. Even now, she recognizes there are facilities, but she feels they are too understaffed and too inadequate to handle the large scope of the problem.
Both Adkins and Bloomfield believe that the administration needs to acknowledge the problem in order to initiate Duke's healing process. Adkins noted that better advertising for the existing programs would be a step in the right direction for the administration, and the next would be looking towards more resources.
Bloomfield said, "The facilities have to be there and the awareness has to be there. But also that's hitting it sort of from the top down, but hitting it from the bottom up is also the kind of impact we want this play to have. We want to make a community where it's not so hard to talk about it, where it's not such a hidden problem."
Adkins and Bloomfield have begun to use art to provoke change on Duke's campus--and it's evident from the ticket sales. The four shows are nearly sold out. The student body, the faculty and Durham are taking notice of this production. Perhaps Duke will become a different place, a better place, thanks to the efforts of two courageous voices.
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