|
|
|
|
Overtraining and
Undereating: The
Dangers of Pushing the Limits
by
Falasten Abdeljabbar
Produced for the Web by Ami Albernaz
The squeak of the sneakers, the bouncing of the ball,
and an athlete falls to her feet, wincing in pain.
One girl changes her clothes in a bathroom stall, embarrassed
to show her thinning arms and protruding ribs.
Healthy outside, suffering inside.
That is how many of America’s 120,000 women athletes live
their lives. Crippling knee injuries, no menstrual cycles
for a year and the onset of early osteoporosis or, as one
specialist called it, "old bones in young women," are putting
athletic women of all ages not only on the bench, but into
hospitals, too.
Anorexia nervosa, amenorrhea, and osteoporosis form the
debilitating Female Athlete Triad, a group of afflictions
found in nearly 44 percent of all college women athletes.
The term was first coined in 1992 at a conference sponsored
by the Women’s Task Force of the American
College of Sports Medicine to discuss the alarming increase
in report of these conditions in sporting women.
Studies show that the low body fat of an anorexic puts
a stop to the menstrual cycle. Once the menses stop, the
victim goes through a phase similar to menopause, losing
the hormones necessary to build bones, which in turn causes
the onset of osteoporosis. That is the Triad.
"We don’t know whether these conditions are new, or whether
we are just seeing it more because more people are participating,
because frankly, there was no research kept, no data on
women’s sports up until the 1970s," said Dr. Carol Otis,
a Los Angeles-based sports medicine physician. Otis co-authored
"The
Athletic Woman’s Survival Guide" (Human Kinetics: 2000).
| Anorexia
nervosa, amenorrhea, and osteoporosis form the debilitating
Female Athlete Triad, found in nearly 44 percent of
college women athletes. |
Otis said
that women in all sports are susceptible to eating disorders,
bone loss and menstrual irregularity. But three athletic activities
put women at greatest risk: those with weight requirements,
such as martial arts and wrestling; "aesthetic" sports such
as ice skating and swimming where appearance counts; and "advantage"
sports like long-distance running, in which thinness is thought
to improve performance.
"It began with noticing that their [female athletes’] bones
were really thin, which was a surprise, because these women
were athletes," said Otis. "From there, the research showed
that a lot of these women had disordered eating."
Anorexia "Athletica"
Despite their fit appearances, anorexic athletes usually
have a body image that is far from "healthy."
"Judges want to see long, lean legs and a slender figure,"
said Jessica Laine Clawson, a 19-year-old equestrian from
Virginia who developed anorexia during her senior year of
high school. "There is a lot of pressure to look like a
rider," she said. "Chunky women don’t fit that picture,
no matter how beautifully they ride."
Clawson, who is 5 foot 7, never was overweight, but wanted
to look like "the tall, willowy women who won in the hunter
ring." She now weighs a delicate 106 pounds but at her low
point was down to only 87.
Clawson does not blame pressure from her coaches for her
condition. "My coaches and trainers were completely against
my losing weight because I was at the ideal weight before
I started," she said. "But I didn’t believe them. I didn’t
see it as a problem." The more likely trigger for her disorder,
she said, was academic stress coupled with the pressure
to "look good in riding breeches."
"If I couldn’t have the highest grades," she said, "I
could be the thinnest."
NEXT:
A deadly need to be perfect
|
| |
|
|
|
|
PAGE 1:
The Female Athlete Triad
PAGE
2:
Warning signs of an eating disorder>>
PAGE 3:
How to help an athlete with an eating disorder>>
PAGE
4:
Knee
injuries: Another occupational hazard>>
|
|
|
