Letters to the Editor

Nutritional information encourages eating disorders

I don't understand how the dining hall community came to the conclusion that helping people calorie-count at every meal was a fine idea. It blows my mind that numerous intelligent people, including students, who profess to care about the well-being of the people on this campus condone and encourage this practice. Are any of you paying attention to the women who hold up the lines because they are frantically reading the fat gram information? To the people who take a piece of chicken, see the number of calories plastered on top, and regretfully put it back? To the abundance of painfully thin people on this campus? Look around you. Why isn't this a bigger problem?

There are over eight million people in this country who suffer from eating disorders. I am not one of them. I do not have anorexia. I am not bulimic. I am, however, one of hundreds of women across this campus who try every day to fight the disorders, the images, the urges, and the competitions. I work so hard to not fall prey to a system that tells me I'm not thin enough. This is not helping.

A friend and I went to brunch last Sunday morning, excited for the French toast. We love the French toast. We get into line—and there it is. Fourteen grams of fat. My friend looks at the toast, then at the label, then at me, and then she keeps walking, and says, "Damn, I really liked that stuff." And I, in my anger, in my heart-broken, defiant anger, take two, as if I could eat for her.

Eating disorders can go both ways; overeating is also a problem. And the freshman fifteen isn't exactly fun. But to argue, as a previous Herald article did [YH 9/22/00, "For a clichéd predicament, new solutions"], that those gained pounds are more detrimental to our health than the mental, emotional, and physical dangers associated with typical disordered eating, is outrageous. I agree that the dining hall should be addressing the issues of healthy eating. There should be access to the numbers—for the athletes, the people who are allergic, and those who calorie-count anyway. I'm not advocating a lack of information, but it is simply not necessary to bombard the rest of us with destructive facts that lack context. That breeds obsession, and obsession is bad. Some of us don't want to know, precisely because we don't want to obsess. We don't want the information rubbed in our faces. If you need to know, find out in the pamphlets by the register. I am begging you: please don't make it any harder to fight than it already is.

Women are succumbing and recovering every day. We need your support, and I can't think of a worse way to give it. More people die of anorexia and bulimia than any other psychological disorder. Tell me again how many people thought that shoving fat facts in our faces was a good idea. Shame on all of you.

—Lauren Leiken, SY '01

Warnings about e-mail security amount to no more than hype

Though ITS policy allows ITS officials to read private e-mail if warranted, ITS has neither the time nor the resources to monitor everyone's e-mail. Furthermore, Anya Kamenetz's "Who else is reading your private e-mails?" [YH 9/29/00] fails to notice one important point: all e-mail is inherently insecure. E-mail is routed unencrypted through mail servers to reach its destination. If Yale students really cared about secure e-mail, they would encrypt their e-mail using PGP or other similar programs.

—Ayan R. Kayal, TC '03