COMMUNICATION: DISORDERED EATING "It was impossible for me to think of a world beyond my plate. Calorie counting, running around the track in eternal circles were how I spent my time. I was obsessed with feeling in control over something. While I was trying to gain control over my body, I was losing control of my place in the world." That is Robin's story, one of the many personal accounts of eating disorders that are being shared in a visual arts project designed to build public understanding of anorexia, bulimia and compulsive eating. The project is the work of Kathryn Sylva, UC Davis assistant professor of design, and Robin Lasser, assistant professor of photography at San Jose State University. In a traveling exhibition, a Web site, on billboards and displays on buses and bus shelters, the two are using startling juxtapositions of image and text to explore the personal, cultural and historical dimensions of a problem that affects some 5 million to 8 million Americans and up to a quarter of college-age women. Sylva says she hopes that people come away from the displays with not only a greater awareness of the disorders but increased compassion for those who suffer from them. "We stay with the personal story and with the emotional content of the personal story because all of us can relate to each other's emotions," said Sylva. "You can relate to the feelings of loss of control, of shame or of guilt." Equally important, the project is designed to help people who are experiencing the eating disorders. "We have the goal of giving to these people the sense that they are not alone," said Sylva. "If they see themselves reflected on the gallery walls or on the billboards, it breaks the isolation. We thought that using a Web site for this would be particularly helpful because if people are dealing with a shameful issue they have the opportunity to look at this in the privacy of their own home." The Web site provides information, a resource list and individual stories by the women and men who have struggled, or are still struggling, with eating problems. Viewers can read the stories or share their own. "For us the most positive part of the Web site has been the collection of stories," said Sylva. But receiving these e-mail missives and corresponding with the individuals has certainly been an emotional experience, too. "I open my e-mail and can be in tears at 7 in the morning reading these." Many of the visuals on the Web site and in the exhibition and public spaces couple pleasing images--burgers on a barbecue, scrumptious frosted cakes--with disturbing messages: letter-shaped hamburger patties, for example, that say "Fear of fat eats us alive" or piped frosting that spells "gorge." "People come to the work with their guard down," said Sylva. "The cakes and the barbecues have an inviting quality, and it's actually the text that has the real emotional intensity." The exhibition and public displays have appeared in a number of venues in California and in Toledo, Ohio. The exhibition will travel next to the Soho Photography Gallery in New York for the month of September and then appear next year at San Francisco State University. The project will also be included in the Los Angeles County Museum's upcoming millennium exhibition. The Web site is located at www.eating.ucdavis.edu.