Marcia and I have been working on a new section of the National Eating Disorder Association’s upcoming Coach’s Toolkit, due out this spring or early summer. We thought this information could be useful for parents of athletes, as well.
For genetically susceptible kids, middle, high school and college sports can act as incubators for disordered eating and eating disorders. A coach’s admonishment to “eat healthy,” or “give one hundred and ten percent” in training, to the ears of a perfectionistic, Type A child, can be interpreted as permission to overexercise, or result in restrictive or binge-and-purge eating.
If your child is being pressured to lose weight for a sport, consider this: is this really the right sport for your child? Weight is what it is, and it's up to the coach to position athletes appropriately, instead of encouraging them to manipulate their weight. If your daughter is being given subtle or not-so-subtle hints about her size, gently broach the topic of finding another sport where her natural shape and size will be honored.
If your child is in a sport where there are weight restrictions, such as crew or wrestling, check to see how this sensitive aspect of the sport is handled at the schools your child is considering attending. Marcia likes the approach that one small New England liberal arts college takes. Coaches hold unscheduled, random weight checks so that an individual athlete might get weighed once or twice a season. The weight check only evokes a response from the coach if the athlete is losing weight. This approach is positive (to safeguard the health of athletes) and not punitive (to punish them for their weight); athletes know it’s just a routine check that is part of being on the team.
You might also think hard about encouraging an eating-disordered high school child to pursue her or his sport at a residential college. The adjustment of living away from home, dealing with cafeteria dining, heavy study loads and navigating a new social environment can be too much to add to demands of sticking to a food plan. Any pressure (real or perceived) to maintain a very thin athletic body can trigger a relapse.
Peace,
Nancy and Marcia
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