Meet Abby Solomon


Abby helped her friend cope with an eating disorder. Now she’s on a lifelong mission to show other girls the rewards of a positive body image.

18 year-old Abby Solomon has always tried to maintain a healthy attitude about food and weight. Sure, she sometimes thinks it would be nice to look like a supermodel (who doesn’t?), but at the end of the day she knows that it’s more important to feel good than to be thin. So in high school when her friend started shedding pounds by skipping meals, Abby took action! Read how this Girls Inc. National Scholar discovered that reaching out to one person can open the door to helping many others.

When did you notice that your friend had a problem? What did you do about it?
During my freshman year in high school, she just stopped eating. At lunch, she would maybe eat a few bites of salad. If we went out after school, she wouldn’t touch her food. I’d say, "You’re not eating!" but she would deny it. When the pounds started to drop off, I got really scared. My friends and I wanted to help her, but we didn’t know what to do. She wouldn’t go to a clinic or talk to anyone at school, so we decided to talk to her brother because he was very close with her. He went to her parents. With a lot of support, she finally got the help she needed. She’s gotten better and now she’s in college.

What advice do you have for girls who suspect that a friend might be suffering from an eating disorder?
It’s really important to confront the person. Even though it took time before my friend was ready to admit that she had a problem, it helped her to know that there were others who cared about her. She thanked me later for being the first person to step up and say something. People with eating disorders need help, but most of the time they don’t know how to ask for it.

Do you think eating disorders and body image issues are a big problem among girls your age?
I think these kinds of problems occur at all ages, but high school is especially appearance conscious. At the Girls Inc summer camp, I teach water aerobics to girls in kindergarten through 5th grade and I try to get them to focus on how much fun they’re having-not what they look like. Lots of these girls are already worried about their bodies and comparing themselves to Britney Spears! Because I’ve had friends who struggled with eating disorders, it frustrates me that people resort to such extreme measures to conform to what society tells us is beautiful. We need to get away from those images in the magazines. That’s one of the reasons why I chose to major in Exercise Science at college. I really want to help people learn to appreciate how great it feels to be strong and healthy.

Dig Deeper
Eating disorders are very serious illnesses that require professional treatment. For more information, check out these sites:

National Eating Disorders Association

Something Fishy Website on Eating Disorders

Eating Disorders Referrals

Abby has created her own eating disorders Web site!

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