Nothing tastes as good wrote:
LateRunnerPhil wrote:
1) They are healthy.
You are right. Nobody can tell from looking at pictures whether these women are healthy. Only their doctors know for sure.
This also means that since you aren't their doctor, you have no idea whether or not these women are healthy. Their health has nothing to do with whether they are eating well, or whether they have muscles in "the right places." Their health is about the metabolic consequences of low BMI.
Jager's weight is irrelevant to whether these women are healthy. The consequences of low BMI are different for men than for women. That is why it's called the Female Athlete Triad.
These women have been running for many years at an extremely high level. I don't know about Hassan, but KoKo had ONE single injury (runner's knee last year) in 10+ years of running and training, and at least 4-5 years extremely competitive/high level.
KoKo was a dancer before she started running - this sport gave her extreme strength (for her size/weight) and flexibility. Even now she takes 1 hour dancing lesson per week. That's on top of all the strength and conditioning at NOP.
KoKo is already a rarity in that she was an extremely good HS runner (2:03/4:08 with 18) and kept improving through college.
As long as young female runners don't idealize her and her body everything is fine. I agree that KoKo is an exception in that with her body type, history and training the weight is perfectly fine for her with 0 health issues. But if the average female HS/college runner starts starving in an attempt to look like her, that's the real danger because they might not have the talent, body type and surrounding training (lots of strength, dancing, overseen by PTs and world-class coaches, etc) to be successful with this kind of weight.