When I saw the thread title, I thought MG had died. Glad she's okay.
When I saw the thread title, I thought MG had died. Glad she's okay.
Last year, when I read another article about her situation, it seemed to me she did have an eating disorder but no one wanted to stick that negative label on her because she's such a nice girl and it might hurt her feelings and make her sicker. I can't say my opinion has changed much. Being OCD about food and eating routines, plus engaging in excessive exercise for one's own body, IS an eating disorder.
yooyooyo wrote:
The article insults the people on this site who had concerns about her in high school. Back then, we weren't throwing the words "eating disorder" willy nilly. We were expressing our concern that she was at an unhealthy weight and she needed help. And we were absolutely right. I don't see where they get off putting us down for that when it's something that everyone could plainly see but wanted to be hush hush about.
Let it be remembered that these "cowards behind anonymous keyboards" were the only people willing to talk about it.
Are you honestly taking credit for smugly calling out an anorexic girl on a messageboard and claiming you were doing it for 'her own benefit'?
Go you!
It so much better to no talk about it and just pretend it doesn't exists.
I was not "calling her out". I was calling out her parents and coaches who could clearly see that something was wrong but let it fester because it was getting her short term success.
6357367766 wrote:
It so much better to no talk about it and just pretend it doesn't exists.
Right. This is letsrun.com. In amongst your 'genuine concern' (haha) there would have been an awful lot of infantile and nasty stuff.
Do you honestly believe that a childish thread on here is going to do any good? Do you think it's more likely to cause her more problems or motivate her to sort herself out?
Surely if you had genuine concerns, you'd approach someone directly. Not gossip about it on a cesspit like this.
The "genuine concern" is totally your words...not mine. There's no way to know how someone will react but yeah it's totally possible that good comes from negative childish immature comments.
Great article and so glad to hear she has gotten through it. Personally, I get her whole OCD and eating too healthy stigma attached to trying to be a successful distance runner and her ability to suddenly just snap out of it. It becomes mind consuming, obsessive and is definitely no way to live.
Struggling with an issue dead on similar, you sort of get wrapped up in routine and only eating at this meal time and that meal time. Then you begin to drop weight, run faster and so the constant vicious cycle continues until your literally at the rattle of complete breakdown.
I also completely understand the inability to label her situation as an eating disorder but like a previous poster said: disordered eating. I don't think she ever thought she was fat or based it on physical image, she was just doing everything possible to be as fit as she can and thus as fast. Just wrapped in routine and continuing to do what worked for her for so long. It's scary how one can lose sight of their health and not to mention their mind.
"Right. This is letsrun.com. In amongst your 'genuine concern' (haha) there would have been an awful lot of infantile and nasty stuff."
We could be just talking about our favorite foods and there would be an awful lot of infantile and nasty stuff. There were childish threads started on the subject back then and they were deleted. Just so we're clear here, I'm not the guy on here posting that Megan needs to eat a sandwich because she looks like she's about to die, which I remember was a real post that was deleted. I brought up my concerns when there were a heck of a lot of comments saying "she's just skinny, she's always been this way, she's totally healthy". If those people had instead made the point that this is a private issue and we shouldn't be discussing it, fine. But I'm not going to sit here and go through the "she's just skinny" charade.
"Do you honestly believe that a childish thread on here is going to do any good?"
This is a DISCUSSION forum. We discuss things here. We're not trying to be a force for good in the world, we are discussing our sport. The future of a star athlete in that sport is pretty damn relevant.
"Do you think it's more likely to cause her more problems or motivate her to sort herself out?"
I hate to be making this argument but since you brought it up, she even says in the article that this shit motivated her to work hard to come back. Personally, I think she shouldn't have been going to any running forums in the first place.
"Surely if you had genuine concerns, you'd approach someone directly. Not gossip about it on a cesspit like this."
That's just it, it's not our place to approach someone directly about this. The people whose place it is to do that? They failed.
Killer Jules wrote:
The author of this story, the "director of writing" (whatever the hell that means) for the entire university, doesn't have a clue about his chosen subject.
She was running the 80-plus miles a week while eating just 3,000 calories a day. That's not low according to some recommended daily caloric intakes for normally active, 18-year-old women. But it was dangerously low given how fiendishly Goethals had been training for years to become the nation's elite girl distance runner.
I've seen women smaller than Megan put in higher mileage on much less (not that it's healthy, but it's possible).
This "Unleashed" dude is just a PR machine for a student-athlete and he clearly knows nothing about EDs. As a result of his knowledge deficits and lack of objectivity, little of what he writes here can be trusted. There is much that is plainly fishy about this story about an eating disorder that is actually not an eating disorder, but I won't say more than that and I wish Megan Goethals all the health and happiness in the world!
Yeah, that's not too low actually. Hell. That's what I eat. And I'm a 160 lb 50mpw high school male.
Even with 12 miles a day @ 100 calories burned each, that's 1800 calories.
HS Senior wrote:
Yeah, that's not too low actually. Hell. That's what I eat. And I'm a 160 lb 50mpw high school male.
Even with 12 miles a day @ 100 calories burned each, that's 1800 calories.
What? That's 12*100=1200 calories, plus your resting metabolic requirement, which adds up to about 3000 calories for a 160 lb guy.
Yeah, I don't understand the sentiment of "sticking it to the messageboard people" because apparently whoever was calling her out on her weight was absolutely correct. Maybe they did it in a rude or insensitive or mocking way (I have no idea), but the sentiment should be to look at the absurdity of the situation and fix the problem that led to insensitive comments.
I'm glad she's healthier now, but the article seems to claim that she didn't have anything wrong with her and that clearly isn't true.
Call me an anonymous coward (although I've never posted anything about her before), but these things do come up in my daily life and it makes it harder to have a conversation with people when they have role models who won't admit fault.
Reminds me of http://shewasoncearunner.com/ except that in Megan's case, she was pulled out of competition b/c she WASN"T running well, whereas in SWOAR, the teammates suffering from serious eating disorders WERE running well, and therefore allowed to compete.
If she does not want to come out and say she had an eating disorder (regardless of whether or not she does) how could the journalist of this article say that? Plus the website publishing this article is connected to the University of Washington so are they going to go into detail about their athlete had a major problem that the coach neglected until it reached rock-bottom? definitely not.
regardless, i wish all the best for Goethals and I congratulate the group that worked hard to resurrect this girl's career.
DKCCC wrote:
If she does not want to come out and say she had an eating disorder (regardless of whether or not she does) how could the journalist of this article say that? Plus the website publishing this article is connected to the University of Washington so are they going to go into detail about their athlete had a major problem that the coach neglected until it reached rock-bottom? definitely not.
regardless, i wish all the best for Goethals and I congratulate the group that worked hard to resurrect this girl's career.
Well this is definitely part of my distaste for the article. If it's a private problem, they shouldn't be writing articles about it. If it's a public problem, they're setting a bad example for other people with disordered eating. And for what reason, so the school can look good?
I'm glad she's healthy, I don't like the way the article was written.
or87 wrote:
When I saw the thread title, I thought MG had died. Glad she's okay.
I read it as she was happy to finally be under 100 lbs.
The article was probably meant more for PR purposes than anything else. Metcalf's quotes relay the message to future recruits that Washington supports healthy female athletes, which is more than what most college coaches can say.
At 115 lbs and a height of 5'9"-5'10", Goethal's BMI is about 17.0. She is still anorexic by definition. This is gross. The article is supporting a problem and not "supporting healthy female athletes".
Earlier this year, I saw her take 15 minutes at a cafe by the Dempsey to choose an orange and a tea for lunch. Maybe it's because she was with Lindsay Flannagan that she is convinced that this behavior is normal. 4200 calories? I seriously doubt it. She wouldn't be toting around Powerade Zero at every meet if that was the case.
Healthy people don't have sallow skin and legs that look like sinew. Doubt she can menstruate at that weight without hormonal therapy/birth control.
This is very sad. Rest in peace!
My previous comment was deleted by the mods, but the gist was:
Goethals is 115 lbs and 5'9"-5'10", which is a BMI of about 17.0. I am not sure why everyone is praising her and the Washington program for achieving "good health". A BMI of under 18.5 is clinically underweight and someone with a BMI under 17.5 is defined by the medical community as anorexic (whether she has anorexia nervosa, the mental component is irrelevant to this point).
Obviously, this is an improvement over her previous BMI of 14.xx, but it is still not okay. And it's gross that there would be a press release praising it.