The Pressure of Reducing Weight on Athletes

Among a discourse community of trained dancers, one expects to find individuals who are healthy and active athletes. Aside from technique and movement, health and cardio are underlying factors that play a huge role in a dancer’s career. Many dancers take on a healthy diet in order to maintain their body weight. Something that has been looked down upon in the trained dancers’ community is what it

Elice McKinley is a ballet dancer at the Carolina Ballet in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Mail Online, 2015). During the interview she admitted she was never anorexic but felt she always had the mentality of one, adding that for nearly a decade she ate very little on a daily basis, only ever eating the likes of boiled chicken and fruit. She also revealed how in the ballet world, weight is a topic that is constantly discussed and how they are told to dance all day, every day, and get by on very little sustenance (Mail Online, 2015). This may suggest how little support is received in an institutional environment and the extent of this concern. I believe some blame can be put on schooling for this low self-esteem and some experiencing body image issues due to being in such a closed minded environment for however many years. It is very important that advice is given to dance students, especially as they are in an environment that is based on appearance and have their bodies participate in such a physically demanding schedule. From experience, I am aware how easy it is to get caught up in wanting to look a certain way and to feel obliged to be a certain size. Without personal advice and support, I believe some dance students will be very uneducated when it comes to nutrition having never been in the environment that

“Dying to be Thin,” produced by PBS, is a documentary that examines the troubles that persons who are affected by eating disorders go through and the constant, daily struggles they face with health and body image. The film tells the story of a number of young women who battled mainly anorexia and bulimia and mixes a variety of ages to give a “during” and an “after” perspective. Many of the women in the video were ballet or some similar type of dancer. Dancers, by their own account, are encouraged to be thin. The issue really came to the forefront after a young ballet dancer from Boston died of heart failure at the young age of 22, with an eating disorder deemed to be the cause. The narrator goes on to introduce more young women and detail the potential illnesses that their eating disorders can cause. Chronic low blood pressure, kidney and liver damage, severe early osteoporosis, and heart failure are all common things seem in patients who suffer from eating disorders. Most patients have dangerously low body weights, body fat percentages, and, often, young women will experience amenorrhea, which is the loss of menstruation. All of the people in the video wanted to be better and were seeking a road to recovery. The video showed though, how difficult that can be since the eating disorders can be so wide ranging and have a number of different root causes. Often patients develop eating disorders as something that they have control over, in a world that they feel is out of their

Eating disorders have become very common today, not only with women but men too (Bordo 2). This fixation with being skinny can be seen most often with modeling. Men and women both are required to be a certain weight if they want to be accepted to a modeling agency. Failure to stay under the weight limit will most likely terminate their contract with that agency. Not only do we see this in modeling or fashion but professional sports. I will never forget watching the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders show a few years ago and watching how big of a deal that the cheerleaders stay within their set weight limit. One of the cheerleaders was five pounds over that limit and was called in for a warning or she would be kicked off the team. Her response, “I guess I’ll have to cut out my favorite snack, PB and J’s.” That moment forever stuck out to me, and made me realize I would never wish to be put under a weight limit for sports, jobs, etc. People often forget starving your body of nutrients is another form of an eating disorder. Bordo claims that, “Eating disorders are also linked to the contradictions of consumer culture, which is continually encouraging us to binge on our desires at the same time as it glamorizes self-discipline and scorns fat as a symbol of laziness and lack of willpower.” (Bordo 2). With the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders as just an example, it goes to show also how much of an effect

What are eating disorders? Are eating disorders a reality for cheerleaders? Is cheerleading a sport that causes females to develop eating disorders? Ron Thompson explains in his book Eating Disorders in Sport that, “Eating disorders are not simply disorders of eating. Also, they are not simply a misguided attempt to be thin; nor are they simply a sport participant’s means to reduce body weight or body fat in an effort to enhance sport performance. They are mental disorders that manifest themselves in a variety of eating and weight-related signs and symptoms” (7-8). I believe that eating disorders are a true and tough reality for cheerleaders especially females. Cheerleading is known as an aesthetic sport, such sport has a higher risk factor to develop eating disorders. Cheerleaders are judged for appearance and wear revealing clothing causing them to

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

Ballet has kept its classic and elegant movements the same but the way they see the female dancers has change the look of it. With ballet there are little dark secrets that are hidden and with it. No matter how nice the dance is there is going to be women that want look better than the next girl on the barre. The old look for dancers was to be short and have muscle because being on pointe is very hard. But now sense society wants girls to be all skinny so ballet with that took it to the extend. And with this many higher schools require their girls to not be on diets so that their fat they eat will be burned up by the end of practice. Having the thought many of the parents of young daughters are brought in to have a talk about how they can portion out their kid and also talk about the training they need to make a career out of this. But ballet is not all bad it has become to know with the more modern song, in which mean that ballet has became also fast beat and sassy when it came to the girls role. No matter what there is there is a fence with ballet that many love it or hate it just depends what side you’re on.

With that being said, certain sports put more emphasize on a player’s weight and performance than others. For instance, gymnastics, dancers, wrestlers, divers and long distance runners feature more strain than sports such as basketball, skiing or volleyball. Gymnasts and dancers are highly at risk for developing eating disorders for multiple reasons. The main reason is that their success relies

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).

The Article, from the Journal of Sport Behavior, “An Examination of Eating Disorder Profiles in Student Obligatory and Non-Obligatory Exercisers” written by Hilary Matheson, Anne Crawford-Wright (2000). The purpose of this study was “to highlight risk behaviors indicated in a student obligatory and non-obligatory exercise population comparing the result to other previous research” (Matheson & Crawford-Wright 2000). According to the authors there has been extensive research that focuses on the “relationships between

Wrestling operates under a weight class system, meaning that in a match each athlete only faces another person within a specific weight range. This ensures that competition is determined by individual skill and technique rather than natural size alone. The consequence of this system is each player will attempt to qualify for the lowest weight class available to him, as he would have an advantage by facing smaller opponents. The problems arise when contestants attempt to lose large amounts of weight in a brief period of time to compete. To achieve this they attempt to remove all the excess fluids from their bodies through sweating, spitting, or vomiting in order to lose water weight and qualify for a weight class. In addition, skipping meals and starving is normalized within the sport, as the drive to drop to one’s lowest

Predominantly, the show centres on work associated with self improvement and includes an array of physical, emotional and psychological forms of labour. The show features endless footage of contestants competing in physical challenges and working out under the supervision and guidance of their team’s personal trainer (The Biggest Loser Families, 2015). TBL also features a weekly ‘weigh in’ where all the contestants discover how much weight they have lost for that week. In turn, those who “pull big numbers” are rewarded and viewed as having worked very hard for that week whereas others who lose a little amount of weight not only face the threat of elimination from the competition but also are often chastised by themselves and others for not putting in enough effort (Plymire 2012:25). Thus, while reality shows such as TBL do bring to the surface ways to combat obesity and can provide forms of solutions to such problems, often the remedies presented create unrealistic and at times “dangerous expectations” about the speed and methods that can be used to achieve such success (Sender 2008:574). Indeed, the show hides a lot of the invisible work that goes on “behind the scenes" in regards to losing weight and altering diets and lifestyles, and gives little airtime to the entire team of health professionals which help the contestants in their transformation (Klos 2015:639; Staley

It is commonly known that athletes sacrifice their bodies for the benefit of the sport. However, the increased demands from coaches, parents, and others motivate these athletes to adopt harmful practices, such as extreme dieting and weight loss. Athletes most often susceptible to implementing such behaviors are body builders, boxers, wrestlers, ballet dancers, and gymnasts. These athletes are notorious for becoming fixated on their weight and body composition. Consequently, there are major concerns regarding the health of these individuals as a result of weight loss techniques utilized to improve performance (Anderson, Barlett, Morgan, Brownell, 1995). More specifically, wrestlers lose large amounts of weight rapidly before competition. Typically, wrestlers lose weight prior to competition in order to enter into a lower weight class division (Kiningham, Gorenflo, 2001). The primary reason for this behavior is to gain an edge on their competition (Kiningham, Gorenflo, 2001). Common methods of weight loss among wrestlers include: food restriction, vomiting, diet pills, and diuretics (Kiningham, Gorenflo, 2001). These extreme dietary habits are often promoted by coaches, parents, and medical professionals (Kiningham, Gorenflo, 2001).

It is unfortunate, that the “bandwagon dieter” will seek different medical procedures that are performed by unskilled and unqualified doctors in and out of the United States to have their dream body. By utilizing these types of procedures the dieter will go to the extreme to get their dream body, but being blinded by the result, this dieter doesn’t follow all research in thoroughly investigating all medical procedures and/or doctors. The “bandwagon dieter” doesn’t always do the proper research; this dieter will endanger their health. The “bandwagon dieter” is always listening out for the next miracle drug for weight loss. However, attending a class reunion or purchasing new clothes can be a dieter’s incentive to lose weight, making a decision to lose weight because of an event are very hard to keep, and the “promise dieter” attempts to lose weight will result in failure. The “promise dieter” always starts their diet on a Monday, that is always the promise and then the “promise dieter” mistakenly eats something not healthy or not on their diet list and then all bets are off. The “promise dieter” is always willing to start their diet over again. But, before the “promise dieter” is ready to start their new diet they eat anything and everything before they start, on their new diet. The “promise dieter” has several attempts of trying to lose weight, unfortunately they are unsuccessful. No one is fooled by the

Weight management has been thought of as only weight loss by many. Weight management covers all aspects of attaining and maintaining optimum weight for a healthy lifestyle. Health professionals now realize that prevention of weight gain as well as weight loss and improving health status are important goals. These goals must be individualized for success.