This week is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. According to the National Eating Disorders Association, 20 million women and 10 million males in the United States will have an eating disorder at some point in their life. These eating disorders include anorexia, bulimia and binge eating. To read more about the health effects of eating disorders, read Allison’s story featuring school nurse Brooke Hancock.

Staff members researched two eating disorders to discover the detrimental health risks of each disorder and inform readers how to be aware of the disorders. To read more about bulimia nervosa, read Tasha Brown’s report on the eating disorder. To read more about binge eating disorder, click here to read Abby Caviness’s story on the eating disorder.

Inspired by recent campaigns, such as the Dove Real Beauty, staff reporter Bailey Hufnagle challenges readers to reevaluate the power of confidence and find true beauty through her personal column.

A scale can tell you your relationship with gravity. That’s all. The number underneath the red dial on the scale in the bathroom can tell you nothing about your muscle mass, your body fat percentage or how healthy your lifestyle is. Most importantly, that daunting number cannot measure the amount of lives we can change with our compassion, the amount of people we can inspire with our words and cannot weight the amount of love we contain for those in our lives. In a society where numbers dictate how the world perceives you, it’s time to redefine what numbers truly matter. Read Kori’s story on her experience overcoming the pressure to have the perfect numbers from May 28, 2013.