Eating Disorders And Excessive Exercise

Fitness has grown to a multibillion dollar industry. The idea of fitness has influenced millions of lives whether the correlation was as a career, lifestyle, or an occasional hobby. People globally compete in bodybuilding, physique, and powerlifting meets earning thousands of dollars depending on their successes. Though they seem pointless at first, even the sixty second long infomercials on television advertising the new and approved anywhere gym equipment or perfect diet has made the viewer at least contemplate their health. People often confuse fitness as a sole concept of either exercising or dieting, but fitness depends immensely on both. Some people in the fitness industry manipulate diet and exercise to create the body stature they desire.

Topic: What is causing young adults and teens to develop eating disorders and how can we help them?

“During an average binge, you may consume from 3,000 to 5,000 calories in one short hour. After it ends, panic sets in and you turn to drastic measures to “undo” the binge, such as taking ex-lax, inducing vomiting, or going for a ten-mile run. And all the while, you feel increasingly out of control” (Smith, Melinda. Bulimia). The final eating disorder discussed in this paper is binge eating. Binge eating disorder is known as overeating or a period of uncontrollable eating. Binge eating is becoming more and more common here in america because of the large quantities of food sold daily. Although, binge eaters do not purge after eating, they still feel shame or guilt after eating like a bulimic (Anorexia, Nervosa).

It is important to distinguish between normal eating and the behaviors that typify eating disorders or disordered eating. Even among those attempting to lose weight or maintain a lower percentage of body fat, normal eating is “flexible and not obsessive.” (Dunford and Doyle 455). Although athletes have a stricter nutrition plan versus the general population, their eating should actively support training through moderate levels of restraint yet should still allow for healthy eating patterns such as eating when hungry, not feeling the need to punish oneself after an indulgence through excessive caloric restriction or exercise, and the ability to participate in social events. Dunford and Doyle term this as “discipline, not…obsession” (456). While the eating disorders of anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating all have clear-cut clinical definitions, disordered eating is a more nebulous term that can define a wider array of

1,445 student athletes from multiple different Division 1 schools participated in order to see the prevalence of eating disorders in a variety of different sports. The student athletes were asked questions about their athletic involvement, eating behaviors, drug and alcohol behavior and attitudes about their body image. The first set of results showed that 16.19% of females and 12.57% of males binge ate monthly (Powers, 1996). 81% of females reported feeling out of control of eating while only 45% of males reported feeling out of control. 23.9% of females reported vomiting as a form of purging but only 5.93% of males reported vomiting. When it came to diet pills, 14.30% of women reported usage while 2.16% of males reported usage. Although males’ results were always smaller than women, they are still at rise and suffering from eating disorders. With this study it is obvious that all athletes experience demands that push them to turn to abnormal and dangerous eating patterns.

Numerous studies have shown that athletes are more prone to developing eating disorders than nonathletes, as well as female athletes being more at risk than their male counterparts. Disordered eating is seen in athletes of all sports. (Johnson, 1994). The prevalence of eating disorders in the female athletic population ranges from anywhere between one and forty percent, depending on the athletes questioned, and the methodology used (Sundgot-Borgen, 1994). Rosen and Hough (1988) found that 32 percent of athletes practiced at least one pathogenic weight-control technique(141). A study done by Sundgot-Borgen, in 1994, controlled for the possibility that self-report data could be unreliable in numerous ways, including not informing coaches of their intentions, and assuring 100 percent confidentiality to the athletes who participated. It found that the risk for eating disorders is increased if an athlete's dieting is unsupervised, if there is an early start to sport-specific training, and/or extreme exercise (Sundgot-Borgen, 418).

Bulimia and anorexia have found their way into the sport of elite, or Olympic-level gymnastics. In a 1992 University of Washington study of 182 female college athletes, 62% of college gymnasts have practiced at least one form of disordered eating. This percentage was higher than that of any other sport. Many elite gymnasts have come forward to admit that they suffer from eating disorders. These gymnasts include: 1970 world medallist, Cathy Rigby, 1972 Olympian Nancy Marshall, 1984 Olympic medallist Kathy Johnson, 1989 junior national champion Erica Stokes and Christy Henrich.

My audience is athletic trainers at the National Coaching Conference. Attendees of this conference are coaches, educators of coaches, sport science researcher, and students. They can use their extensive knowledge of coaching to develop a plan of action for the collection of coaches, across the nation, to take to combat eating disorders among athletes. The development of new regulations and educational requirements for coaches can only happen if a large number of coaches or coach educators are on board.

However, the important factor may not be dieting per se, but rather the situation in which the performer is told to lose weight, the words used and whether the athlete receives guidance. It is very worrying to experience how unprofessionally some professional teachers and trainers may behave. There is anecdotal evidence of how they set their own standards for body shape and weight, and pass on abnormal eating and dieting myths to the new generations of performers.

         Coaches today have trained their gymnasts to maintain the so called “proper weight” that they feel is right for their athletes. Christy Henrich’s coach “claims that gymnastics and its emphasis on slimness are not responsible for Christy’s illness and death. He claims her intense drive to win contributed to her eating disorder. The gymnastic training system encourages young female athletes to keep their weight down, and many gymnasts live on diets of fruits, laxatives, and painkillers” (93). This coach’s statement is not unusual. Many gymnasts go through this kind of training throughout their gymnastics career. We have the ability to change what goes on in gyms like this one. As a lot of psychologists suggest, we as a society have to “inform” our athletes and coaches about the dangers of eating disorders. I don’t think that coaches ever talk to the athletes about the importance of healthy dieting. Most of the time they encourage them to cut down on eating, not to just reconstruct their

Fitness and muscle model athletes are often benchmarked as the embodiment of physical perfection (Sundgot-Borgen et al., 2011). That being said, not all athletes have, or believe that they have, bodies adapted to the paradigm of their specific sport (Sundgot-Borgen et al., 2011). These athletes may often experience pressure to achieve this absolute ideal body type. Athletes competing in aesthetic sports such as gymnasts, figure skaters, divers, bodybuilders experience greater pressure to reduce weight than athletes competing in sports in which lean body mass aesthetic are less important (Drinkwater et al., 2005). Within this class of athletes judged on aestheticism, fitness and muscle models are a class whom are noted for dieting down to extremely low level of body fat to display muscle. There appears to be a rise in competitive fitness and muscle model shows and the goal to emulate if not a sporting aesthetic which will appeal domestically and commercially. (Scott et al., 2013).

“The World’s Grossest Sport” says, “It can cause holes in your stomach. Overeating can also stretch your stomach so much that it can’t digest food properly.” The article “Here’s What Competitive Eating Does to Your Body” also touches on this saying, “If the stomach stretches enough that it can’t get back to its original size, they predict this could potentially cause “intractable nausea and vomiting, necessitating a partial or total gastrectomy to relieve their symptoms and restore their ability to eat.” Competitive eating stretches our contestants stomachs sometimes making them unable to eat. It is one thing to have immediate and short term consequences, but to sacrifice basic functions of your body for the rest of your life is entirely another. To sum up, contestants of competitive eating contests are ruining their health for many years to

Swimmers are just as likely to suffer from an eating disorder as any other athlete. Bulimia Nervosa seems to be more prevalent in these athletes because they can more easily hide what is going on. Many swimmers feel insecure about their bodies because of the tight swim suits that must be worn as well as potential judgement from teammates or spectators about their weight. They even believe that having a lower body weight will help them improve their speed and performance in the pool. However, they fail to understand that under nourishing their bodies can lead to fatigue, which ultimately can decrease performance. If the swimmer has multiple races at a swim meet, they will need to recover quickly depending on when the next race is. But, if they

The altered eating and exercise patterns of those with eating disorders can seriously damage physical and emotional health. The ANAB (n.d.) contends activities associated with eating disorders place one in medical danger. Strenuous over-exercising is often seen in those with eating disorders even though they may be quite ill. The body of an eating disorder sufferer frequently has electrolyte imbalances and gastrointestinal problems. The

Exercise is often thought of in a positive light. It is common belief in today’s society that a healthy diet and a regular exercise routine will lead to a long, healthy life. And in the simplest sense of the word, it will. It has been a tried and true method to control and lose weight, lift a person’s mood, boost energy, combat a variety of health conditions and diseases, promote better sleep patterns, and even increase libido. (Mayo Clinic, July 23, 2011). So with all of these being possible and probable benefits of working out, why would it possibly be anything other than good? Certainly, something with so many benefits can’t be a bad thing? However, we may overlook the fact that it is like any good thing; in excess it can