Like much of the country, we’ve been swept up in the Winter Olympics these past two weeks. The intense dedication and the extreme athleticism of the participants, the heightened drama of battles that occur only once every four years and the contrast between the beauty of the sports and the extremes of emotions they evoke make the games riveting television.
While I've loved watching this spectacle as much as anyone else, it has has been hard for me [Nancy], to keep from thinking about the built-in dangers of some of these sports to trigger eating disorders. I know I’m influenced by my current project of coordinating the National Eating Disorders Association’s Coaches and Trainer’s Toolkit, which will be published later this year. Yet the dangers, and the struggles with disordered eating that I know some athletes in these events are locked in, are real.
One of the newer Olympic sports to be implicated has been the combined Nordic event, which includes the ski jump. There have been a number of highly publicized cases of anorexia and bulimia in this sport as jumping styles have evolved to emphasize flight dynamics that favor lighter athletes. A New York Times article, Battle of Weight Versus Gain in Ski Jumping, details this issue, and efforts the sport has made to address it.
One of our Toolkit board members, Dr. Kimberly Dennis, blogged about Olympic sports and athletes in this post, Does Olympic figure skating foster eating disorders??
I’ve spoken to many athletes, coaches and trainers for the Toolkit, including an inspiring Olympic diver, Kimiko Soldati, who competed in the 2004 Olympics in Athens even as she battled bulimia and excessive exercise.
Soldati told me, “It is difficult for athletes and coaches to draw that line between being as physically fit as you can, maintaining peak performance, but keeping on this side of obsession and compulsion. For me that line was completely blurred. Any athlete with an eating disorder has the attributes coaches love: they are coach pleasing, they have high pain tolerance, they are driven to succeed, they are perfectionists and control freaks. They are very coachable, and coaches love that.”
It’s not just about pleasing a coach and being the best competitor in the field, either; there is also the competition among athletes specifically around weight and size. As Soldati explained, “You have the diving competition, and then you have the underlying body competition: who’s skinny, who’s fat, look who’s five pounds over. It’s the first thing that comes to a diver’s mind when they walk into the pool.”
Like many eating-disordered athletes, Soldati also suffered from more than her share of injuries. She underwent five shoulder surgeries and did not heal properly. “I was also an emotional train wreck because my identity was totally wrapped up in my sport,” she said. “Seeking treatment with a therapist and the strength I drew from my faith eventually helped me overcome my disorder.
Facing the truth about his or her disorder and seeking help is one of the hardest things for an affected child, athlete or not, to do. If you suspect your child or a loved one may be suffering from an eating disorder, the best approach is to learn as much as you can about eating disorders, voice your concern in private in a non-blaming way, and seek help from a qualified eating disorders professional.
Marcia Herrin and Nancy Matsumoto, authors of the [Parent's Guide to Eating Disorders, GürzePress]
We have open OA meetings here in Newport Beach Ca. http://www.eatingdisordertreatment.com
Posted by: kely | March 07, 2010 at 08:56 PM