Athletes often go through sever psychological and physical stress while participating in sports that could possibly be due to poor coaching, anxiety, and the athletic competition. Athletes maintain a healthy lifestyle because they are constantly training and working to stay in shape. They need certain foods to fuel their bodies so when they are exercising they have enough energy to perform a task. However, athletes begin to develop eating disorders when the pressure of athletic competition is put on an athlete plus the cultural emphasis on thinness. An eating disorder is a condition characterized by a reoccurring disturbance of eating or an eating-related behavior that significantly harms physical health or psychosocial functioning. In today`s …show more content…
Anorexia nervosa is a disorder where a person is afraid of gaining weight so they restrict their diet and stop consuming calories. Bulimia nervosa is persistent inappropriate compensatory actions to prevent weigh gain such as vomiting and excessively working out. Finally, binge-eating disorder is reoccurring incidents of binge eating without compensatory behaviors but with noticeable distress with binge eating. All of these conditions are due to the fact that athletes often become unstable and overwhelmed causing them to make poor dietary …show more content…
Statistics were proven that at least 40% of associate institutions informed at least one case of anorexia or bulimia in their athletic programs. Other studies showed that 13% of male athletes and 10% of female athletes began binge-eating weekly, and 25% of male athletes attempted to lose weight by going in saunas and steam baths. Likewise, 4.4% of female athletes made themselves throw up in order to lose weight. Also, 2% of athletes starting taking steroids to increase and improve their performance. However, in today`s generation, eating disorders have become more common and the risk of these conditions in athletes has
Research, 2016. Bordo implicated popular culture as having a serious negative role in how women of America view their bodies. These images have led to drastic increase change in life altering female disorders and eating. Not only does these images affect Americans but young men and women too which they should be fighting against it, not for
Every year thousands of students are recruited to be student athletes at colleges and every year approximately 8 million individuals suffer from eating disorders. According to Psychology Applied to Modern Life, eating disorders are defined as “severe disturbances in eating behavior characterized by preoccupation with weight and unhealthy efforts to control weight (Weiten, Dunn, Hammer, 2011, p. 470).” Eating disorders can include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder. With risk factors such as low self esteem, pressure from family, friends and coaches and access to unlimited to food it is no wonder that collegiate athletes have higher rates of eating disorders than regular college students. Living in a dorm full of mostly athletes it has become extremely apparent to me that these athletes struggle with immense of pressure and one way of getting around this pressure is bulimia. Certain sports put more pressure on athletes to be a certain size and perform at a certain level than others.
Nattiv, Aurciia, and James C. Puffer. "Lifestyles and Health Risks of Collegiate Athletes." Journal of Family Practice. Santa Monica Family Physicians (1991).
All types of people are affected by eating disorders. However, the highest percentages of people that obtain some form of eating disorder classify themselves as dancers. Eating disorders in dancers are commonly formed by rigorous programs, cruel teachers and choreographers, and the unreachable images and physical expectations that are established by society. Not only do eating disorders dismantle the body and destroy its health, they can also lead to the transform of a stable mind into an irrational one that believes its actions are acceptable and rational. Mental instability does not only affect choices and decisions, but can put the victim at severe risk. There is more to an eating disorder than what people think; sacrificing a healthy body
According to the Sports Medicine and Arthroscopy Review’s article on the female athlete triad, in the past forty years, American women have become increasingly involved in athletics as a result of laws allowing them to participate in sports. (Lebrun and Rumball) For instance, Cathy Rigby won eight Olympic gold medals in gymnastics during the ‘60’s and 70’s when these laws were just coming into effect. (Brunet) Nevertheless, there is an ugly hidden underbelly to the many benefits of women’s increased participation in sports. Many sports have very high standards for body image, which has led to the increasing prevalence of three “separate… but interrelated conditions” collectively known as the female athlete triad. (Lebrun and Rumball) Despite Cathy Rigby’s aforementioned success, an article by Dr. Michael Brunet reveals that she was severely affected by the most well-known of the female athlete triad: the eating disorder. This eventually caused her to suffer cardiac arrest twice. (Brunet) These effects are not limited to elite athletes, however; high school athletes are also affected by the triad, particularly those participating in sports “in which leanness is perceived to optimize performance” or which use “specific weight categories.” (Lebrun) The three components of the triad, osteoporosis, amenorrhea, and disordered eating, are increasingly becoming an unfortunate effect of distorted body image on sports.
According to the National Eating Disorder Association or NEDA, an eating disorder consists of extreme emotions, attitudes, and behaviors surrounding weight and food issues. There are three major types of eating disorders: Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and Binge Eating Disorder (BED). Anorexia Nervosa is characterized by self-starvation and excessive weight loss. Bulimia Nervosa is characterized by a cycle of bingeing and compensatory behaviors such as self-induced vomiting designed to undo or compensate for the effects of binge eating. Binge Eating Disorder is characterized by recurrent binge eating without the regular use of compensatory measures to counter the binge eating.
Anorexia is an obsessive desire to control ones bodily appearance. It often starts with the refusal to obtain a healthy body weight. “This disorder is associated with under nutrition of varying severity with resulting secondary endocrine and metabolic changes and disruptions of bodily functions” (Kontic et al. 2013). An Anorexic person has a distorted view of themselves which can lead to devastating measures of self-starvation due to an immense fear of weight gain. In the same way, an individual suffering with Bulimia has a fear of weight gain, but goes about their technique in a different manner. Bulimia is an eating disorder characterized by binge eating or, consuming a large amount of food in a short time followed by guilt. This guilt is the leading factor to the purging stage where the individual will rid themselves of the physical and emotional discomfort. The ridding stage can invo...
Athletes are among the quickest, strongest, most flexible people in the world, so one would expect them to adhere to the latest health and fitness information, right? Not always. The problem is that the athletes often believe that more fit equals less fat. The death of Olympic gymnast Christy Henrich from anorexia nervosa began to bring the topic of athletes and eating disorders to the forefront. Research into the topic of eating disorders and athletes shows a few interesting findings. Most of the studies focus on women and specific sports, namely gymnastics, figure skating, diving, and other weight-dependent sports. Some research, however, shows prevelance findings of eating disorders in female athletes congruent with the general population.
Eating disorders in athletes do not fit neatly into anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa, but rather a combination of both. In athletes, anorexia nervosa may often present itself as over-exercising rather than undereating. In the athletic population, it is difficult to define weight a weight loss criteria for an eating disorder dia...
The three most commonly known eating disorders of today are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating. Anorexia nervosa is a disease connected with abnormal eating; it is not brought on by excitement, delusions, overactivity or a bad habit, it is a mental illness. Development of anorexia usually starts in the early teenage years, however it can go undiagnosed for thirty to even forty plus years. Another eating disorder is bulimia, people who are bulimic have no time to think about daily life; all that is on there mind is their next meal. Someone who has bulimia often l...
Anorexia has many negative effects as well. According to the University of Maryland Medical Centers article Eating Disorders, “Anorexia nervosa can increase the risk for serious health problems such as: hormonal changes including reproductive, thyroid, stress, and growth hormones, heart problems such as abnormal heart rhythm, electrolyte imbalance, fertility problems, bone density loss, anemia, and neurological problems.” Anorexia can severely affect a person internally. The continuous lack of nutrients can leave an anorexic person extremely frail. The heart in particular can grow so weak, that heart failure occurs. Eating disorders can lead too permanent health damages can stay with a person for the rest of their life.
Binge-eating disorder is defined as an eating disorder in which a person frequently consumes large amounts of food while feeling out of control and unable to stop. Almost everyone overeats every once in a while but for some people overeating crosses the line to binge-eating disorder and it becomes a regular occurrence. Many people who have this disorder may feel embarrassed about eating large amounts of food in front of others however the urge and compulsiveness of this disorder continues to affect their eating habits. Binge-eating disorder is estimated to affect approximately 1-5% of the general population and also tends to affect women slightly more often than men. Binge-eating disorder is often associated with symptoms of depression and people diagnosed with this may often express distress, shame, and guilt over their eating behaviors.
There may be murmurs about that girl who only fixes herself a salad with only vinegar at dining services or suspicious glances at someone who spends 45 minutes on the treadmill and then switches to the stair stepper at the rec. On-campus eating disorders are talked about everywhere and yet are not really talked about at all. There is observation, concern, and gossip, but hushed conversation and larger scale efforts to help and change never seem to earn public attention.
Bulimia nervosa is a slightly less serious version of anorexia, but can lead to some of the same horrible results. Bulimia involves an intense concern about weight (which is generally inaccurate) combined with frequent cycles of binge eating followed by purging, through self-induced vomiting, unwarranted use of laxatives, or excessive exercising. Most bulimics are of normal body weight, but they are preoccupied with their weight, feel extreme shame about their abnormal behavior, and often experience significant depression. The occurrence of bulimia has increased in many Western countries over the past few decades. Numbers are difficult to establish due to the shame of reporting incidences to health care providers (Bee and Boyd, 2001).
Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa are described as psychological eating disorders (Keel and Levitt, 1). They are both characterized by an over evaluation of weight. Despite being primarily eating disorders, the manifestations of bulimia and anorexia are different. They both present a very conspicuous example of dangerous psychological disorders, as according to the South Carolina Department of Health, “Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness” (Eating Order Statistics, 1). While Bulimia and anorexia both psychological disorders primarily prevalent in women, anorexia tend to have different diagnostic complexities, symptoms and physiological effects as compared to bulimia.