Ole Miss Community Joins Forces to 'Smash' Stigma of Eating Disorders

A 2004 graduate, Dempsey travels the country sharing her personal story of hope and healing. On Feb. 25, Dempsey will host Southern Smash, a National Alliance for Eating Disorders event designed to help students, faculty and the public confront issues of weight and body image.

"I looked like your everyday Ole Miss student," Dempsey said. "I was a Kappa social chairman, planning parties, handing out T-shirts and literally dying behind closed doors from an eating disorder."

Dempsey's eating disorder began during her freshman year of high school and haunted her all the way to Oxford, she said. She remembers strolling through the Grove, silently wishing someone or something would offer her a helping hand.

"I didn't know how to ask for help," she said. "For me to come back and hopefully let others know that it's OK to ask for help and they don't have to be dying behind closed doors, that you can get help at any point in your life, is incredible."

According to the Cambridge Eating Disorder Center, 95% of people who have eating disorders are between age 12 and 25.

Dempsey, who has been in recovery since 2010, wants to provide the support and encouragement she once desperately needed. With Southern Smash, she offers a chance to redefine one's relationship with body image and food.

The event is free to the public and will run from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the Ole Miss Student Union Plaza. A panel discussion featuring Dempsey and nutrition professionals is set for 6 p.m. in the ballroom of the Inn at Ole Miss.

The William Magee Center for AOD and Wellness Education and the UM Nutrition Clinic are sponsoring the event.

The day's activities an opportunity for participants to write down their "perfect number" – whether it's a weight, a grade or a thought that's holding them back – and then let it go by tying it to a balloon to symbolize releasing the things that weigh them down.

Next, attendees can write their own affirmations on cards to provide a reminder that their worth is not defined by their appearance.

Then comes the smashing. Participants can take a baseball bat to a scale, symbolizing the freedom from defining themselves by any number.

"These conversations are long overdue," said Deanna Driss, an Ole Miss nutrition and hospitality management doctoral student and registered dietitian.

"Sometimes people just don't think about it, and they just think that the way that they're feeling is normal because it's really normalized in our society to have body image issues or food issues," Driss said.

It can often be difficult to identify who is struggling with these issues, Driss said. Fewer than 6% of those affected by eating disorders are underweight, which means many are struggling without visible signs, she explained.

"When we have the idea of somebody in our head, of what someone with an eating disorder looks like, that's actually really far from the truth," Driss said. "You can just have no idea by looking at someone what they're actually struggling with."

For Dempsey, the empowerment provided by such events is about more than just body image; it's about letting go of the toxic pressures people place on themselves.

"When I started Southern Smash, all I kept thinking was myself at Ole Miss at 19, 20, 21 years old, walking through campus, loving my time there and not getting the full experience of what I wanted," she said. "If I can just help one student know that it's OK to go and get help, to know how to ask for help and to know where to go get help, then I've done my job."

Visit the National Alliance for Eating Disorders website for more resources and information.

Top: An Ole Miss student takes a swing at a scale during a 2024 Southern Smash event. The event symbolizes the fight against weight stigma and eating disorder misconceptions. Photo by Srijita Chattopadhyay/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services