LRC Discussion: Finding the proper way to discuss eating disorders/women's weight issues on LetsRun.com

I don't think this particular situation has anything to do with trolls harassing a girl. It has to do with genuine concern that those close to her aren't looking out for her best interest. These are the situations where I feel that honest conversations with names and pictures should be allowed on these boards, People need to see why she is being discussed and to view the extreme condition she is in. It is sad and it is very uncomfortable to look at and those close to her don't want to see her being a topic of discussion. That doesn't mean it's not important to talk about.

cast the first stone wrote:

d.gracey wrote:

My stance: It needs to be talked about openly and with names and pictures. Do you know why the Ray Rice thing blew up after the video was released? Because you can't ignore it doesn't exist and images are real. Once the images are out there and you see them in person it's sad and something needs to be done. The threads are about the athlete and it's hurtful to see negative comments, but reality needs to be dealt with. Her friends, family, and coaches need people to disagree with them because their eyes are blurred with her being close to them.

You go first. Who are you? What professional qualifications do you have? Lets see a picture of yourself so we can talk about you -- for the good of the sport.

There is nothing about my opinion that requires a particular qualification. This thread was started to create an open dialogue regarding how to set boundaries and rules when it comes to handling these situations. Many may disagree with me and that is perfectly fine because it's a collection differing ideas that will ultimately create what the Brojos are looking for.

Great post by both sides so far on this thread. Something does need to be said at times because if a very skinny girl is winning races the thoughts of her competitors can become very toxic. As someone pointed out earlier, they were getting beat by skinnier girls and she needed to hear that it's unhealthy and unsustainable to live like that. You have women like the above posters wife that may have always been 95 lbs so perceptions can be wrong, but it's hard to imagine if she was doing 90 mile weeks and competing for NCAA titles it would be healthy for her. Sadly a lot of what you see with running threads on these boards is avg girls that went from 130 lbs to elite status at 95 lbs. Then after a season or two they dissapear. That is what many are trying to prevent. There were two girls in my conference that both went from relatively unknown to top 3 at NCAAs after massive weight loss and it was very disturbing. The one girl got help and went back to a healthy weight and accepted running wasn't worth dying over.

My wife had a bout with eating issues after a bad race that she blamed on being over weight. From Nov to Jan she went from 117 to 101 and did it through starving herself. It was very apparent after the first few indoor races people were making comments about her weight and they weren't positive. Our relationship was very strained and I was very unaccepting of her new lifestyle she was trying to live. It took a lot of work to break the habits she had created over a few quick months. One thing that did help was having healthy role models that were very successful post collegiatly that weren't under weight. Since then she has tried really hard to not allow her perception of weight to be what determines if she will continue to improve.

These boards can be very brutal and the worst comments will be deleted which I support. Quite a few times over the past year several comments have been made that my wife was overweight. It's not easy to read and it's obvious that comments like that can be damaging to a young runners perception of themselves. However, one reason why Letsrun is great for the sport is it provides a place that difficult topics can be discussed and once the bad posts are removed, you can find meaningful discussions that help the running community.

When she had some eating issues a few years back most of them were driven by under performing in a very important race and an inaccurate perception of what was needed to be fast. She is more mature now so the comments that were made over the past year didn't effect her like they would have 5-6 years ago.

The discussion regarding specific athletes may not entirely benefit that athlete in the present like it does future athletes. There is no doubt reading discussions about an athlete that is well under a healthy weight and watching their short careers helps coaches and parents understand that there is no benefit of being underweight in the long term. Action needs to be taken early to educate young athletes and especially female athletes that losing weight is not a solution. We have pulled up pictures of past athletes with eating disorders and used them as examples to young athletes we coach. Showing them what an ED can do to you in the long term is important.

I said I'd give the most thoughtful responses on this thread an LRC shirt and I sent the shirt on Monday to Dillon Gracey, Neely Spence Gracey's husband. He provided a lot of perspective.

And we're posting an article on the homepage praising Crystal Nelson for discussing her eating disorder and calling for more people to speak up (they can remain anonymous). You can find it here:

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2015/10/huge-thumbs-up-to-crystal-nelson-for-discussing-her-eating-disorder-and-a-call-to-hear-from-those-who-have-overcome-eating-disorders/

And while one thing this thread has convinced me is that disordered eating affects both sexes, here is an interesting article by Katie Matlock on the Female Athlete Triad ( disordered eating, low bone density, and amenorrhea, the absence of menstruation), titled, "The Silent Sports Health Crisis, the Female Athlete Triad). The article notes how much discussions are discussed but eating disorders very little.

https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/the-silent-sports-health-crisis-female-athlete-triad

Thank you for posting the link to the article on the female athlete triad. There are, in fact, life-long consequences to disordered eating, and it is heartbreaking to see talented female runners fall victim to round after round of stress fractures (due to compromised bone density), reduced fertility, etc.

I want to urge LRC to continue down the path of looking for studies, advice from experts, etc. I agree that it is important for individual athletes to share their stories. When someone like Crystal or Dillon Gracey (neither of whom I know) talks about disordered eating, other young athletes struggling with disordered eating might be inspired to speak up, or get help. It could, as you point out, save a life.

But, eating disorders are hugely complicated. In addition to first-person narratives (or, in Dillon's case, the valuable insights of a spouse of a professional runner), I'd like to hear from trained mental health professionals who specialize in disordered eating -- particularly professionals with experience treating athletes. I have to think LRC could track down and interview mental health professionals for insights on how to spot and raise ED issues with athletes.

I appreciate that your thread was entitled "LRC Discussion: Finding the proper way to discuss eating disorders/women's weight issues on LetsRun.com." I agree that finding a respectful, helpful way to discuss these issues on the boards is important. But, at this point, I think that the thread is not just about how to deal with weight issues on the boards. I think that you and the other posters are worried about athletes dealing with disordered eating. I suspect many would like to know how to talk about disordered eating in real life (and not just on anonymous boards) -- especially, when an athlete close to us begins to show symptoms of an ED.

It should be pointed out that we don't make the same comments about men who are extremely skinny ... and perhaps we should. Eating disorders amongst men is quite common, and we don't talk about because we are less comfortable objectifying male bodies.

I commend LetsRun.com for addressing this issue and for understanding the importance for allowing the running community to have an open forum that permits discourse on the topic.

When it comes to eating disorders or the Female Athlete Triad, it is the responsibility of the coaches, administrators, parents, agents, sponsors, and teammates to step-up and address the issue. In a more comprehensive look, we can explore Relative Energy Depletion in Sports (RED-S). This goes much deeper into the topic, which includes the Female Athlete Triad, as well as many other medical and mental effects that impact both females and males.

Education is key and this has to come from the authorities in the sport. We need more athletes to be vocal about the importance of living a balanced, well nutritionally based lifestyle. This is so important, that the IOC has included it in their Olympic Charter and the Olympic Movement Medical Code. But to spark real change, it requires a bottom-up approach which places the burden on those that work directly with the athletes. This can be difficult for some to discuss, especially if it is a male coach working with female athletes. However, we must get comfortable discussing uncomfortable issues. The athletes’ long-term medical and mental health is at stake and it should not be taken lightly.

This can be even more difficult to address when success is at hand. Athletes that are 'winning' will find it hard to believe that they need to gain weight and coaches will be placed in a difficult position as any coach that truly understands the science of distance running will know that a weight gain will impact race times (at least initially as it affects VO2max). But does one successful race or season really matter in the bigger picture. I personally feel it would be more beneficial to ensure long-term development and success by building a STRONG athlete that can handle the rigors of performing at a high level. This developmental approach will mitigate issues related to RED-S and permit the environment for greater success later in life. And on a scientific level, if our aerobic ability improves with age (time), then it seems like an easy concept to accept as it relates to developing future Team USA athletes that can make multiple international teams.

This is a difficult topic and it is one that has been researched for a long time, but isn't given enough attention. Issues related to concussion in sport cloud over other issues as the topic of RED-S and the Female Athlete Triad isn't experienced much in the high revenue sports. As a community, we need to support more funding and support for these topics, and education needs to occur at an early age. The longer a person deals with these disorders, the harder it is to overcome the issues. I spent many years in the military where I saw the effects of PTSD that isn't address early enough or properly. This too is a mental disorder and it is very difficult to overcome. For one, there is the societal stigma associated with seeking psychological help. Additionally, when an athlete is successful, no one wants to be the 'bad person' and tell the athlete they have an issue. This requires a cultural change within our community. This isn't going to occur overnight, but what is happening here on this forum is a huge step in the right direction.

Thank you LetsRun.com and thank you to all those that have provided insightful feedback on the issue.

I never had a true ED but my college coach would frequently shame me about eating after meets or say remarks about my weight in front of others.

Also, I would like to echo some of the other sentiments that this site or similar can contribute somewhat. One of the first remarks you often see about women not being as fast as they once were is that they've gained weight.

My wife and her teammates briefly struggled with this while in college. It was all about performance, which is the story you will hear most often. It starts with a little weight loss, then improvement, then obsessiveness. If anyone said the word "healthy" all they heard was "too fat to be fast".

Instead of just calling out people who we suspect of ED, why not attack the issue at it's source: the desire for better performance + belief that lighter is always faster . I'm imagining an LRC series giving the fastest people in the world a platform to discuss the issue. (I know elites claim to hate LRC, but if they want to reach the dedicated young runners that are susceptible to ED this is the place.)

Through interviews, guest columns, and research you could share individual elites' stories, the nutrition it takes, the science behind it all, etc. Approach it from all sides. Not only focusing on what not to do, but also being informative on what they should be doing. They would have to be pretty candid for it to be effective. For example a runners world article with Kara saying "oh yeah I eat healthy and enough to fuel my running" does not convince my wife; define enough, define healthy. Detailed and personal is the key.

People keep bringing up male ED, which I am sure exists, but I seriously doubt that it confers the advantages to boys that it does to girls. Look at the top all-time lists for 3200/5000 for HS boys and girls and you will see one girl with ED after another, while the boys' list has no hint of such.

Female physiology, especially around puberty, has such drastic tradeoffs that girls with ED (unwittingly or otherwise, and even encouraged by bad coaches) are exploiting a "hack" in the biological system for short-term results. No such advantage for boys, they don't have to deal with menstruation and estrogen as part of the performance balance.

I had a teammate in high school who developed an eating disorder in college. He was a senior when I was a freshman, very healthy looking guy who was pretty muscular for a distance runner. He was our #1 that year, and then left to run for a very well respected college program.

In January of the next year he came back to visit and run with us. He was absolutely emaciated, the transformation was shocking. He looked so different I didn't recognize him at first. He ran well for the first part of that season, but crashed at the end because he wasn't eating and didn't have any energy. He later quit running and dropped out of school.

I was a victim of the Female Athlete Triad. I literally do not remember menstruating until my sophomore year of college. My parents were aware of the issue, knew the repercussions, but never investigated. Throughout high school, I assumed it was something all female elite runners dealt with, and I had this fear that if I started menstruating I would gain weight and slow down. I practiced disordered eating but wouldn't have labeled myself anorexic. Instead I followed an extremely low fat diet and avoided desserts all while running high mileage. It wasn't until I got a stress fracture in college and had the resources to speak to a doctor that I actually started to care about my health and think about the future. I documented by experience in an e-book entitled She Was Once a Runner, which had generated some talk on these message boards several years ago.

Sorry that you had to endure a coach that shamed women for their eating. Not professional at all.

I will say one thing... athletes need to be more vocal and stand-up against these types of coaches. This is hard... I know... especially if that athlete is on scholarship or is afraid of being removed from the team. But this is part of the reason there are so many unqualified coaches at the collegiate level. Poor coaches keep slipping through the cracks because no one speaks up when they violate the rules or simply are idiots (sorry to use childish words, but many of these coaches are childlike with their maturity).

Athletic departments have a senior women's coordinator. This person should be reachable to discuss serious issues and anything related to shaming, humiliating, or creating a culture that promotes unhealthy habits should be addressed.

I have time now to respond more fully to the topic (sorry so late to the party). My freshman yr of high school, a prominent high school runner in Ny state named Erin Davis was a senior & undefeated at the state level in xc. Davis was known most for winning the footlocker title as a freshman (when she was much tinier) & anytime I was around male high school coaches discussing Davis' prowess, the focus was always on how she gained weight over the course of her high school career & would never run as fast as she did as a pre pubescent freshman. In my state, Davis' story was almost folklore & told by many male coaches to many of their young female athletes as though somewhere within that story there was a lesson to be learned & that lesson was: eat less run more. On a broader scale, I'm sure every state had a story like Davis' and the ways in which these stories are communicated by coaches to young female athletes can have a deep impact on how we determine what it takes to be successful. In my case, I determined avoiding puberty would make me successful, hence why I put off menstruating for so long.

I am a female head coach of a college cross country and track and field team and former distance runner for D3 and DI . It is refreshing to read through an intelligible thread about a real issue on here for once, and one that it seems many women are coming out of the Letsrun wood work to post about.

A couple of things I wanted to say. Please don't refer to eating disorders as a pseudo form of PEDs. Yes, there is the short term benefit of losing weight to run faster. But to take PEDs is a choice, not a genetic predisposition. (I believe someone said this already). It's offensive to imply that these young men and women purposefully adopt an eating disorder for the sole purpose of running faster. It's much more complicated than that.

I just sat through a lecture detailing the biological markers and predispositions, and even epigenetics that are involved with the development and vulnerability to developing an eating disorder. Developing an ED, or having the potential to, goes hand in hand with the risk for other mental disorders and diseases such as depression, anxiety, personality disorders, etc... If you want to do more research into the biology of it, look into the studies on the disconnect that exists within the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) in patients with diagnosed eating disorders, it's fascinating and explains a lot.

Another thing I think most coaches and observers fail to realize is that the size of the person does not determine if that person has a serious eating disorder or not. There are LOTS of "healthy looking" athletes who are not paper thin but who struggle with binging and purging and disordered eating. Just because your athlete doesn't look skeletal doesn't mean they aren't fighting an enormous battle between their bodies and their minds.

Back to coaches- the biggest thing you can do wrong is remain "silent." Or "wait for it to get better." It won't. Eating disorders, as do most mental disorders, take a team of specialists to combat. My policy for individuals who I even believe to be flirting with the dangerous territory is that they MUST be going to therapy, to a dietician/physician, and to the team trainer. I require that they sign off consent for regular updates from those specialists so that I as the coach know that they are "staying on top of their homework" as I call it. Just as we receive injury reports from our athletic trainers, we receive reports from the "triage" giving brief updates on the athletes progress and attendance. As a coach, I know I am not qualified to offer treatment, but I know am qualified to search it out and follow up to make sure that athlete is going to it and making progress. Developing this support system and plan of attack makes sure that I am never the one to make the call whether or not that individual participates or competes, but rather puts it in the hands of many qualified professionals who are evaluating from every angle.

As I think has been stated already, there could be nothing more harmful to these individuals than posting pictures and publicly shaming athletes with eating disorders on this forum. Would you post pictures of a person and their scars from an attempted suicide? No. So stop blaming the sufferers, and start calling to action the support systems around these young athletes who might be too scared or too ignorant to know how to respond. I have on several occasions talked to coaches whose athletes I believed to be in the danger zone with EDs. Some coaches receive it well, some don't. If they don't, you can always call the trainer at that institution to express concern (a practice that I know is done quite often).

Overall, the biggest thing is to bring it to light. To speak kindly, but speak strongly when you see someone is in trouble, and to remember that this is a battle bigger and more real than many could ever imagine it to be.

Techniques has an interesting read from February 2015. It's on page 12.

http://www.ustfccca.org/coaching-central/techniques-magazine

CoachN wrote:

It's offensive to imply that these young men and women purposefully adopt an eating disorder for the sole purpose of running faster. It's much more complicated than that.

I just sat through a lecture

Swoar wrote:

the focus was always on how she gained weight over the course of her high school career & would never run as fast as she did as a pre pubescent freshman.

This is a particular super-charged toxic combination.

Prepubescent kids are very fast if they are focused on the sport from an early age. Then puberty comes and there's no telling what kind of performances the kid will have, and then they are blamed for not crushing their prepubescent times.

Again, it's encouraging to read this thread and see the Brosjos actions.

Simple question - are eating disorders primarily an American female issue?

What is the % of American females with ED's compared to European, Asian, Hispanic, etc????????????

Personally, I think it is mainly (tho not entirely) an American societal issue.