Cherie Langkabel felt she had led a secret life for years.

The MSU social work junior stood up to tell her story about her eating disorder behavior that she had hidden to a crowd that included close friends and family two weeks ago at Respecting and Understanding Body Image's, or RUBI's, "Take Back Your Body" night.

Since her freshman year, Langkabel suffered from bulimia nervosa, an eating disorder characterized by periodic binges on food, followed by purging.

The disorder developed soon after she came to college. It started as a way to control her weight but quickly turned into a way to control anxieties in her life.

"No one was watching me," Langkabel said. "I was my own boss."

But the eating disorder soon took over her life, she said. "I was scared, because I was so out of control," she said. "I was so used to being in control."

This story is not uncommon, as college campuses are often the perfect place for eating disorders to emerge, said David Novicki, counselor at the MSU Counseling Center.

"It's the freshman phenomenon. It's a stressful time, and all of a sudden, no one watches what you're eating or notices when you're taking eight showers a day but your hair never gets wet," Novicki said referring to the excuse people with bulimia might use to take extra trips to the bathroom.

In 2002, MSU researchers found that 4.5 percent of women and 1.4 percent of men reported having been treated for an eating disorder, and almost 11 percent of women and 4 percent of men were at risk for developing an eating disorder.

For the study, 1,899 students responded to questions about health attitudes, height and weight that were distributed in residence halls, greek housing and Olin Health Center.

Nationally, 90 percent of college-age women diet, and at least 35 percent of those women become pathological dieters, according to the National Women's Health Resource Center Inc. About 25 percent of those women will eventually develop "partial or full-blown eating disorders."

Eating disorders are highly complex psychological illnesses that go beyond food, said Judith Banker, the founding director of the Center for Eating Disorders in Ann Arbor.

What many people don't understand is that eating disorders are not something that people can just stop, Banker said. Often those who develop anorexia nervosa, characterized by self-starvation, have a personality profile that includes perfectionism, high anxiety and a tendency towards obsessive-compulsive disorder, Banker said.

"It's a self-feeding process," Banker said. "The more you starve, the more you want to starve."

Often a person becomes isolated and paranoid and feels like they've developed a double life, Banker said.

"It rapidly erodes the self-esteem," Banker said. "There's a feeling of walking around like such a big fraud."

Those who suffer from bulimia often seem to be trying to return to a time when they didn't stress about their image, Novicki said. The purging becomes an obsession.

"The thought is, 'I'll be accepted if I lose the weight,'" Novicki said. "It continues after the weight is lost."

Irene Langkabel, Cherie Langkabel's mother, knew something wasn't right when her daughter would visit home her freshman year.

"She wasn't happy," Irene Langkabel said. "I kept asking, 'Are you okay?'"

Cherie Langkabel said she struggled with her body image and worried about what others thought of her. She often struggled with wanting to be perfect, whether it be grades, her love of running or relationships with others, she said.

The summer before Langkabel's sophomore year, she finally told her aunt about her bingeing and slowly began the process of getting help from her family, one-on-one therapy and a weekly MSU support group.

"I was scared to death; thank God that she reached out," Irene Langkabel said.

People who are anorexic usually have unexplainable weight loss, almost never eat with others and are increasingly isolated and depressed, Banker said. Bulimia sufferers often have large weight fluctuations, may have puffiness in their cheeks from swollen glands, marks on the backs of their hands from inducing vomiting, eat in secrecy or eat a lot and have to use the bathroom soon afterwards, she said.

For anyone suffering from an eating disorder, getting help takes enormous outside intervention, Banker said.

"Left to their own devices, they would starve themselves to death," she said.

It is important to listen, be understanding and help that person find appropriate help, Banker said. It is also important when speaking to a friend that you not refer to weight loss or gain, but focus on changes in his or her mood or behaviors, she said.

Finding out about her daughter's disorder was the beginning of a long process of healing, Irene Langkabel said. During the disorder their relationship suffered, but she and her daughter now work through the disorder together.

"This is not something that is fixed in two months," Irene Langkabel said. "It's not just going to disappear and go away."

Cherie Langkabel said she's had one lapse in her progress after abstaining from the disorder behaviors a couple months ago, but she refuses to let that discourage her.

"That's not me," Langkabel said. "That's not how I want to be defined. I want people to see me as a unique, different, strong individual - a fighter."

Speaking at the RUBI event was a step for Cherie Langkabel to take control of the disorder.

"It was the best day of my life," she said. "I wasn't this word 'bulimia' anymore. It didn't define me."