Due to the pressures within the sport environment, such as
coaches, teammates, competitors, uniforms and judges, every athlete is at risk for developing unhealthy eating practices to lose weight or to change body size/shape in order
to become more competitive and to meet societal and sport-related
physique ideals.
But not all athletes struggle.
Why is it that some athletes refuse to diet or conform to an idealized body image but others end up in a dangerous place of disordered eating and extreme exercise?
- Advice from coaches - Many coaches connect the ability to change body composition to
that of hard work, discipline and commitment to sport. Coaches (and onlookers)
will often applaud athletes who can reduce body fat to exceptionally low levels.
How many times have you heard an athlete, coach or commentator say that an
athlete looks race ready by referencing body size, shape or appearance? Comments made by coaches, social media, body shaming, fat talk, attributing poor performances on weight, and low self-esteem can initiate or intensify underlying body image concerns. It's not uncommon that many athletes (and coaches) believe that body weight is
determining factor of athletic success. Even worse, many coaches attribute a
poor athletic performance to weight. A coach who has an underlying obsession
with weight will only intensify an athlete’s body image concerns.
- Body dissatisfaction - How often do you “size up” your competition based on a look of exceptional fitness? Considering that body dissatisfaction is normalized in our society, it’s not surprising to learn that one of the main contributors to dieting, disordered eating or an eating disorder is body dissatisfaction. Body
dissatisfaction (or poor body image) refers to unhappiness with the shape, size
or weight of one’s body or appearance. Interestingly, negative thoughts about
one’s body tend to develop (and strengthen) from body comparison. Have you ever
noticed how easy it is to establish your level of body dissatisfaction based on
how your body shape/size compares to that of another athlete?
- Pursuing a race weight - The idea behind a “race weight” mentality stems from a
belief that your body will perform the best at a certain weight. More often
than not, this weight is often less than your healthy, set point weight. A low
body weight (or body fat percentage) is perceived as a biomechanical advantage.
This belief leads many athletes to work diligently hard to achieve a physical
body type to fit sport instead of letting the body develop and improve as a
result of sport. In other words, instead of letting your body unintentionally
change from the effects of proper nutrition to support consistent training, you
are led to believe that with some hard work (aka dieting), you can override
genes, hormones, age, fitness level and other physiological mechanisms to
achieve an arbitrary number on the scale that will guarantee peak performance.
In a race for leanness, many athletes succumb to unhealthy and extreme weight
loss behaviors. As a result, in the attempt to improve performance, performance
and health are sabotaged.
- Deep in diet culture - No
matter who you are, diet culture wants you to feel like you have complete
control over your body image. Happiness and feeling good about yourself is not
something that you need to earn by achieving a specific body weight, size or
shape through dieting. Food should never be conditional. Diet culture is trying
to compromise one of your most special relationships – the one that you have
with your body and food. Dieting is a form of starvation. Whether it’s overexercising, undereating or a
combination of both, you are in a losing fight against your biology. When you
are underfed, undernourished or underfueled, your brain will obsess over food
until you “give in.” Your body is extremely smart. Whether you like it or not,
your body has powerful biological mechanisms which are triggered when your body
does not receive the energy it needs from food. You may feel like you are
addicted to certain foods but this is your body’s way of driving you to eat the
calories that it needs to function. The pattern of weight loss and weight gain from
dieting is called weight cycling. This constant yo-yo dieting is in and of
itself an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease, insulin
resistance, inflammation and high blood pressure. This cycle is more harmful to
your mental and physical health than maintaining a higher, but stable, body
weight. There’s nothing wrong with adopting new behaviors to improve your health,
performance or well-being. If anything, it’s encouraged! But health is not
synonymous with size. Peak performance is built from changing your physiology,
not your weight. Regardless of the incentive, intentional undereating (especially
when you are very active) is hazardous to your well-being. It can’t be stated
enough but anytime you are engaged in some form of intentional food restriction
(often for the sake of shrinking your body or maintaining a fantasy body), you
are buying into diet culture which is packed with false promises and
unrealistic claims. Pursuing a restrictive style of eating will keep you on a
roller coaster of mental, emotional and health struggles as you become more out
of touch with your hunger and satisfaction cues.
It's no secrete that many athletes struggle with body image. But what about elite and professional athletes....do they deal with the same issues?
→Are Olympians afraid of becoming too muscular?
→Do they feel pressure from coaches to lose weight?
→Do they worry about weight?
→Do they have days when they don't feel good in their own skin?
→What about nutrition - do Olympians follow a strict diet plan?
Many athletes struggle with eating enough to support the energy demands of training and wanting to look a certain way. When the pressure is so great to achieve a specific body composition, it's not uncommon for restrictive or extreme eating strategies to compromise physical health, mental well-being and athletic performance.
It's not about the look of your body but what you can do with your body.
I hope you can take some time out of your day to listen to this raw, enlightening and educational discussion with Katie Zaferes. As a female athlete at the top level of her sport, she discusses how she fuels and eats for performance, how she deals with body image dissatisfaction as well as her tips for how to build better body confidence.
→Are Olympians afraid of becoming too muscular?
→Do they feel pressure from coaches to lose weight?
→Do they worry about weight?
→Do they have days when they don't feel good in their own skin?
→What about nutrition - do Olympians follow a strict diet plan?
Many athletes struggle with eating enough to support the energy demands of training and wanting to look a certain way. When the pressure is so great to achieve a specific body composition, it's not uncommon for restrictive or extreme eating strategies to compromise physical health, mental well-being and athletic performance.
It's not about the look of your body but what you can do with your body.
I hope you can take some time out of your day to listen to this raw, enlightening and educational discussion with Katie Zaferes. As a female athlete at the top level of her sport, she discusses how she fuels and eats for performance, how she deals with body image dissatisfaction as well as her tips for how to build better body confidence.