Osteoporosis is the final and most lasting link of the Triad, difficult to treat and with sufferers particularly prone to stress fractures.

The former dancer’s severe menstrual irregularity along with an acute case of anorexia at age 11 has cost her 20 percent of the bone density in her spine, deeming her osteopenic, an earlier phase of osteoporosis. "Nobody ever tested my bone density," she lamented.

Studies show that birth control pills with certain levels of estrogen can stop bone loss in younger women. This type of hormone replacement therapy is commonly prescribed.

According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, until 30 years of age, women build and store bone. So what happens when women in this age group are losing bone?

Stress fractures are almost always a result. David Tagle, a physical therapist at the NYU Health Center, says that stress fractures are "a repetitive injury."

"They usually occur at the feet," he said, adding that the fracture usually heals on its own in six weeks.

"They never happen the first time you go running, for example," Tagle said, explaining that the injury can mean a greater risk of athletes developing osteoporosis.

ACL: Agony

"It happened at 2:30 p.m. and the snow was getting very soft. The fall was unspectacular but the knee went one way and the skis went the other," said Joanne, a 49-year-old skier from Houston who tore her ACL on March 5.

"After walking it off a bit I tried to ski again," she recalled. "Bad mistake, I fell again as the knee was mush." Joanne ended up in the operating room a few days later, on her 49th birthday.

Beyond the Triad, knee injuries also pose an enormous problem for women athletes, who are six times more likely to have them than other women. The ACL, or anterior cruciate ligament, puts nearly 3,000 varsity collegiate athletes on the disabled list every year.

"ACL is a non-contact injury. It just happens to an athlete during an event," said Otis, adding that basketball and soccer pose higher risks for ACL tears. "Women are more susceptible to it because of their structure, called the ‘Q’ angle, the angle measured at the knee," said Price, amid the shouts and whistles of Coles on a Friday afternoon. "Females have greater Q angles than males, because of their hip structures."

Beyond the triad, knee injuries also pose an enormous problem for women athletes, who are six times more likely to have them than other women.

Dari Magyar, a point-guard for the NYU women’s basketball team, tore her ACL during the last game of her high school junior season. "I was dribbling up the court and I planted a cross-over," she said. "That’s when it tore," an injury that cost her team the playoff game and sent her to the operating room.

"They replaced the torn ligament with the patella tendon," recalled Magyar, adding that rehabilitation with a physical therapist took nearly four and a half months.

In 1999, Rebecca Lobo of the WNBA New York Liberty severed her ACL ligament during the first game of the season. A few months after surgery, she reinjured the same knee, putting her on the disabled list for the following season.

Tagle said that female hormones such as oxytocin and relaxin, produced by women during menstruation and pregnancy, make ligaments more susceptible to ACL tears.

ACL sufferers can choose between two types of surgery: an allograph, where an ACL is taken from a cadaver, and an autograph, where bone from the same person’s body helps to restore the torn ligament.

"The ACL maintains the integrity of the knee," said Tagle. "Once the ACL is gone, you start feeling unstable." He usually recommends that athletic patients take a year off from sports after surgery. "I would say there is a 98 percent chance of the knee giving out [again] if a 20-year-old female athlete tears her ACL," he said.

Albert, the UCLA dietician, believes that coaches can sometimes have a negative influence on athletes. "The [athletes] that are the most disciplined, the ones doing the most harm to their bodies, are the ones who are the most rewarded by their coaches," she said.