of resources on nutrition revealed during National Eating Disorder Awareness Week

FROM AWARENESS

had an eating disorder, said that lack of aid for eating disorders and ignorance in the feld of health isn’t specifc to Dartmouth. She said that the most robust support she ever found during her family’s challenges relating to eating disorders was in a Facebook group.

“I wish the pediatricians and the therapists and the nutritionists all had a good understanding of how to best help people,” Carlan said. “A lot of them are really locked into diet culture and would say things like, ‘Oh, don’t worry, we’re not going to make you fat’ to my kid.” believes that Dartmouth Dining is hesitant to publicize this option because they’re afraid of students “abusing” it.

Everyone interviewed agreed that in future years the College should organize more robust programming to honor the week.

Carlan said she will continue to advocate for other changes on the Dartmouth campus related to eating disorder awareness. She and Rudnick both tried to convince the administration to light up Dartmouth Hall and the Collis Center in blue and green to celebrate the week, but were both turned down.

“It is logistically almost impossible to do a drill that involves the entire community,” Montás said. “We are most effective as we go in small groups.”

Montás said that he believes if students are not requesting training on their own, they will not participate when the College mandates a lockdown drill. Montás added that, to his knowledge, there are no universities with mandated lockdown drills.

Swartz added that he believes most arriving students at Dartmouth would have high school experience with active shooter drills. After previously working at the University of Alaska, Swartz said that there were no standardized lockdown drills throughout the university’s 16 campuses.

In an active shooter situation, Montás said that Safety and Security would rely on law enforcement for a primary response and to neutralize any threat. In the meantime, Montás said that Safety and Security officers would work to secure the area and assist those exiting.

“We will cordon off the area best we can, have law enforcement who are trained in tactical response to come in and neutralize the threat,” Montás said.

Martin said that Hanover police’s main priority is to “neutralize the threat” in an active shooter situation. If that is not possible, Martin said police strategy involves containment of the threat and encouraging safe evacuation of victims.

Martin said that on campus, Hanover police trains with Safety and Security, and new officers spend a shift working with Safety and Security to become “oriented” with Dartmouth’s campus.

According to Montás, the College has mutual agreements with neighboring law enforcement agencies from Lyme, Lebanon, Enfield and statewide response teams to respond in an active shooter situation. He said that Hanover can get a “good core” of law enforcement response on campus within minutes despite its rural location, including additional support from large departments in Vermont.

Martin said he believes that Hanover police has become better equipped to deal with active shooter threats since 2018. Over the past year, he said that the department has updated tactical and medical equipment for emergency responses, including providing a CPR AED update and tactical medical training to officers, including the use of tourniquets and different methods of “tactical medical care.”

Montás said that there is always room for improvement. Both Montás and Swartz said that the College is working to update “access control systems” for various buildings to improve the College’s ability to lock doors from the outside in an emergency.

Martin said that the department is on high alert for the possibility of emergency incidents and that preparation for shooting events is of the “highest priority” for the department.

“We are focused on providing a safe, secure environment for our students,” Martin said. “So, we do training with our public schools in town as well — the elementary school, the high school and of course Dartmouth.”

Rudnick mentioned raising awareness around how students can use their meal plan when they’re in recovery as one potential avenue. Dartmouth Dining has an app through which students can arrange to have a large number of small meals prepared for them throughout the day, which is common when returning from an eating disorder, she said. However, Rudnick added that she

Carlan said she wants to host a walk or panel discussion to spark conversation about eating disorders and will continue to host her anti-diet book club to change the narrative around food. She also suggested including “size equity” — as in treating every body type with respect — in diversity training. Rudnick suggested forming a student group against eating disorders as a more permanent source of advocacy.

“[Size equity] should look like breaking down the ways that we discriminate against fat people,” Carlan said. “... If we can be more fat-accepting, we decrease the occurrences of eating disorders and we decrease their length and their chronicity.”

Dartmouth must be proactve and thorough when it comes to establishing its emergency response protocols.

For a happier and healthier America, we must re-emphasize the importance of learning how to cook.

This article was originally published on March 2, 2023.

On Feb. 13, tragedy struck Michigan State University when a gunman killed three students and injured fve others. This shooting, just like dozens of others in schools across America, highlighted the shortcomings of MSU’s emergency response plan — including that students were not notifed of the threat for nearly 15 minutes, leading to rampant spreading of misinformation about the threat.

Unfortunately, recent reporting by The Dartmouth shows that our emergency response plan is fimsy at best in the face of threats to campus safety. For example, the College does not provide its students with comprehensive emergency training to prepare for active shootings. What training it does provide is only available “on request.” In fact, campus emergency response manager Ron Swartz said that he expects students to rely on active shooter training they received in high school. Such shortfalls in emergency preparedness systems must be addressed.

The College’s lack of emergency preparedness training is, politely, both embarrassing and frightening. While most students — at least those who went to school in the U.S. — may have experienced active shooter training in school, that training took place anywhere from one to four years ago. What’s more, many of the thousands of faculty and staf who attended grade school prior to the turn of the century and the 1999 Columbine High School shooting did not receive training on what to do in active shooter situations.

Dartmouth — a campus where some buildings have stood for over a century — has also not invested in the infrastructure needed to protect its community. For example, while some buildings and rooms such as dorms can only be accessed using ID card readers, not all spaces currently utilize the same technology. Once inside a building, not all rooms lock in the same way, if at all. Sure, doors can be barricaded in an emergency, as Safety and Security director Keysi Montás told The Dartmouth. However, without any training, how can students and faculty be expected to know this?

And we aren’t just concerned about a mass shooting hitting campus: Campus preparedness for other emergencies — like fres and natural disasters — is also sorely lacking. While the steps to take if the fre alarm goes of seem clear — get out — what to do when there is no easy way out seems to be on the back burner for preparedness eforts. As we saw when the recent polar vortex swept through town, much of the College’s infrastructure is not able to endure extreme weather events. When temperatures dropped below -30 degrees Fahrenheit this term, many students struggled above 50 degrees to old windows that let the cold inside, the state of many buildings are ill-prepared for extreme weather.

Moreover, when there are emergencies such as assaults, fres or other threatening incidents on or around campus, the College oftentimes fails to provide students with all of the relevant details or are notifed only after the threat has disappeared. For instance, when South Asian graduate students were verbally harassed and physically assaulted this past fall, students were not notifed of the threat until a day after the incident. What’s more, hesitancy to release the racialized nature of the incident failed to inform students of color that they could have been at risk of a racist attack. These decisions prevented students from taking actions to protect themselves, such as avoiding the area or being on high alert for people matching the suspect’s description.

We recognize the anxiety that these events — the shooting at MSU, the racist attack in Hanover, the threat of some other emergency — may bring to members of the Dartmouth community. We do not write this with the intent to sow fear among the masses. Instead, we demand that the College prepare its students, faculty and staf for events that are unfortunate but real possibilities. What does this look like? First and foremost, Dartmouth must communicate a plan of action on how to respond to campus threats with community members. We already have the channels with which to do this: Students could receive explicit training during New Student Orientation or in foor meetings with their undergraduate advisors, and faculty and staf can be assigned mandatory webinars similar to those they must already complete for their jobs. Dartmouth must also make a targeted efort to bring all of its buildings online with consistent, reliable infrastructure to tackle security, heating and other safety issues. Sure, this approach will take a great deal of money to pull of — but shouldn’t the College be willing to spend big to ensure student safety?

Altogether, it is imperative that the College invest more time and resources into strengthening its emergency response protocols and infrastructure. We cannot approach emergency response planning with a lackadaisical attitude — we must be proactive and thorough to ensure that we minimize the harm incurred in such situations. We urge the College to refect on its current emergency response systems and address many of the current shortcomings. After all, especially during emergencies, it is much better to be safe than sorry.

The editorial board consists of opinion staf columnists, the

U.S. citizens are some of the busiest people in the world. Workaholism, anxiety and packed schedules defne most of our lives. Alongside being either fulltime students or employees, many of us strive to keep up with a long list of hobbies, maintain friendships and stay connected with our families. It’s no secret that we’re experiencing a social epidemic. According to the American Psychological Organization, 27% of Americans describe themselves as stressed to the point that they can’t even function. An extremely anxious society naturally has a hard time maintaining and sustaining a balanced lifestyle. As most are aware, living in this “go-go-go” mode every single day comes with signifcant trade-ofs. For many, this takes the form of sacrifcing the time it takes to cook meals for oneself. However, it may be easier to incorporate cooking into daily routines than we think.

If you’re anything like me, you probably grew up with parents who had full-time jobs and never cooked meals, instead relying on frozen entrees and whatever fresh fruits and vegetables were on hand. Don’t get me wrong — I am extremely thankful for my parents, who immigrated to the United States for the purpose of giving my siblings and I a better life. They do, however, epitomize the normalized trend of depending on processed “TV dinners” to save time. This isn’t to say that there aren’t higher quality, fully prepared frozen meals available, but unfortunately those tend to be pricier and less accessible. Until very recently, my perception had been that cooking is an extremely difcult and time-consuming skill to acquire, which surveys fnd to be a widespread belief among Americans. However, in order for a meal to be nutritious it certainly doesn’t have to take two hours and be made fully from raw ingredients. I am a proponent of pre-cut frozen or fresh vegetables, pre-cooked canned staples and salad kits.

Though many dishes may sound complicated and time-consuming to prepare, once learned, they are actually relatively simple and require minimal time and efort. For example, some breakfast options that come to mind include overnight oats, banana pancakes, omelets and vegetable quesadillas. Easy lunches can consist of simple soups, burrito bowls, stir-frys, colorful salads, grain bowls and even smoothies. Achievable and tasty dinners — my personal favorite meal of the day — can encompass anything from homemade pizzas, baked stufed cabbage rolls and hearty stews, to coconut chickpea curry with naan, sweet potato sliders, marinated mushrooms and tofu bufalo bites. Nonetheless, many people, like my parents, never took time to learn how to cook these kinds of simple meals that have balanced macronutrients and are packed with nourishing vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

During my of term, I’ve been trying to challenge my parents’ perception of how long it takes to make a decent, delicious meal compared to just heating something up in the oven. I discovered that my personal preparation and cooking time ranged from 15-45 minutes from start to fnish. The average amount of time that Americans spend cooking per day is 37 minutes, so I was pretty close. When I started timing myself, I was quite surprised at the relatively little amount of time it took to prepare meals for myself. My previous belief that cooking for yourself takes at least an hour was shattered. Of course, with more practice making a dish, the faster the process got for me. My parents’ frozen pizzas and lasagnas were challenged quite soundly — and now my family gets giddy when I’m in charge of dinner.

Still, carving out those 15-45 minutes was admittedly difcult at frst. Surveys also show that fnding that time is one of the biggest burdens that people use to justify not cooking for themselves. As a student with a full schedule, I highly empathize with that. By the time dinner rolls around, it’s quite understandable to just eat “instant” foods, snacks or a microwavable dinner. However, if we all collectively decide that it’s worth weaning of of constantly getting takeout and relying on frozen entrees, we all would be much happier and healthier on many levels. Even if we only made a few dinners for ourselves each week, the overall well-being of Americans would skyrocket. In fact, we recently saw a glimpse of this COVID-19 lockdown: A 2021 study found that psychological well-being increased with greater participation in culinary activities.

In the hectic world we live in today, fnding some semblance of balance sounds nearly impossible for a lot of us without a signifcant amount of efort. The last thing we need is another thing on our plates — pardon the pun — and being mindful of including home-cooked meals into our day sounds overwhelming. However, with little changes, it becomes a habit that will barely need any thinking to incorporate into our lifestyles. When you begin cooking for yourself, not only does your risk for serious illnesses go down, but on top of the physical health benefts, it’s a great way to express your creativity, de-stress, sharpen our minds, boost your confdence and take care of yourself.