Lauren Fleshman NY Times: “I Changed My Body for My Sport. No Girl Should.”

Anybody who is choosing to be elite/professional in the sport of distance running, male or female, will have to train their bodies to a state that science would consider slightly 'unhealthy' or at the very least, not optimal for health. Think about what distance running at that level does to the human body: creates hormone imbalances (for men and women), can cause heart related issues such as enlargement/increase stroke risk, leads to inevitable 'overuse' injuries and tendon/muscle issues.

You can't possibly expect perfect health if you're in this sport. C'mon. If you don't like what elite level running does to you, choose another sport or just run lower mileage for fun and fitness. I made the switch and am so glad I did.

what she is saying is..... to thy own self be true.

If you are not the correct body type for professional running then don't do damage to your body by trying to change it. Or don't commit to professional running until you have your adult body.

Thank you.

Fogrunr wrote:

fem-a-la-fem wrote:

I’m female. As a D1 runner I developed an eating disorder under a female coach. Later, I had a male coach and recovered with his help. I give a lot of credit to my male coach for my recovery. The man blame is crazy. That is not the issue...

Thank you.

absolutely. i am good friends with a decently fast sub-elite girl. she constantly obsesses over her weight, without the help of a coach. She knows that her best times came at a weight that led to months without a period. But soon thereafter she crashed. She still badly wants to get back to that weight and talks about how her GIRLFRIENDS tell her that if she wants to get back to her old speed, she needs to lose weight.

I read the article and found it to be thoughtful; it furthers the conversation on the subject much more so than Mary Cain's piece (though I appreciate hers as well). I don't find the article to be entirely man shaming; she did give credit to her male HS coach for educating her about undereating. I do agree that coaches of women and girls (both male and female coaches) should develop a better understanding of the physiological changes that are specific to women, and should also be better educated on the dangers of mixing undereating with these physiological changes. I do not believe that women's bodies were designed to be high-performance distance running machines, and that is ok! I agree- it is inappropriate and irresponsible on the part of a coach to push an athlete toward compromised health, irrespective of performance. That said, successful distance runners of both sexes posses a dangerous level of intense narrow-focused drive and obsessive compulsive tendencies. Every successful distance runner that I have personally known has had the drive and obsession necessary to seriously compromise their own health in the name of performance. The fact of the matter is that runners do not need the help and direction of a coach to ruin their own health- many will choose to do so independently. Yes, we need education for coaches, governing bodies and parents, but we also need to help girls and young women inolved in the sport to become personally principled enough to be unwilling to risk their own health for the sake of marginally improved performance during a brief window of their lives. Additionally, I am all for adjusting the level of expectation that we set on women for performance. I would love to see a sport landscape where young girls desire to push themselves to achieve better performance, but are unwilling to compromise their own health and where these young women are also personally principled enough to avoid compromising their health, even if their performance lags that of their peers. I think the best antidote against this problem is for you g successful female runners to develop a sense of self-worth that is detached from their running performance. I think many will agree that the vast majority of successful young female runners attach their self-worth almost exclusively to their running performance. That is a piece of the underlying problem that needs to be addressed if we can ever hope to further the conversation toward real solutions.

This article really only had man bashing in the first couple sentences but because I'm not a Sensitive Steve I was able to move past and read the rest of the article. Obviously the sport was designed by men and the expected development curve is based on male development. But placing the blame solely on men is misguided because both men and women in leadership positions are pushing girls and women towards unhealthy states.

The article had some good points based on Fleshman's experiences. However, in order to be best in this sport, it seems like a woman has to push themselves into an unhealthy place and there will always be super competitive women willing to do that. I don't see this problem being resolved anytime soon.

Hayduke wrote:

what she is saying is..... to thy own self be true.

If you are not the correct body type for professional running then don't do damage to your body by trying to change it. Or don't commit to professional running until you have your adult body.

That's fine, but there are still a couple issues worth dealing with. First, this pressure that thinness leads to performance gains can start young, really young. Like middle school, high school, college--during key developmental phases that can be really destructive in the long term. Both in terms of health as well as long term athletic improvement curve.

Second, even at the professional level, maximizing body composition should not be done haphazardly and there are especially bad consequences doing this haphazardly for women athletes. There should be plenty of help from registered dietitians who understand of female physiology so that it can be done in the most effective way possible. This is not just for long term heath, but also for maximizing performance. People don't perform best if they are constantly fighting off infections and injuries because their body is run down and can't recover from hard training. There are a number of dietary tweaks as well as nutrient timing that can be done to enhance leanness and minimize hormonal disruption. For starters, Stacy Sims wrote a whole book about it. One problem with coaching being a male dominated profession is just a lack of understanding of the degree to which doing this properly is important. A good example being Alberto giving racing weight goals without any guidance beyond casually mentioning Pete Julian's wife (who wasn't even a registered dietician) for advice on how to get there safely. This is absolutely unacceptable in a professional group as well resourced as NOP.

Lauren in college, like Shalane, had a "soft" (and I would argue, attractive) look compared to other top runners

http://asklaurenfleshman.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/fleshman-a100.jpg

Like Shalane and Molly, she lost a lot of bodyfat as a pro:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS5DsjKrn3_wEMNwipVRviHWft3ZzPVdFCNJ-jUIkhgaZg17jPKzw&s

She dropped 21 sec off her 5000 PR as a pro v. college. Facts matter.

YMMV wrote:

Lauren in college, like Shalane, had a "soft" (and I would argue, attractive) look compared to other top runners

http://asklaurenfleshman.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/fleshman-a100.jpg

Like Shalane and Molly, she lost a lot of bodyfat as a pro:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS5DsjKrn3_wEMNwipVRviHWft3ZzPVdFCNJ-jUIkhgaZg17jPKzw&s

She dropped 21 sec off her 5000 PR as a pro v. college. Facts matter.

She wasn't arguing that women shouldn't lose body fat and become leaner in the transition from collegiate athlete to pro. In fact she very much believes that this inevitably happens, especially as women get in their late 20s and 30s. She was arguing that this is something that happens through the process of training intensely for many years and physical maturation in concert with intelligent nutritional choices rather than extreme caloric restriction over a short period of time. Her experience with trying to rush this process at the very beginning of her pro career was that she lost her period and got injured and had an unnecessary disruption to training. Other female pro athletes have written about a similar experience, including Kate Grace.

I would like to see a moderated round table discussion, including top women runners like Lauren and Shalane, as well as coaches, both men and women, and have them tackle this topic for the benefit of women of all ages. Sniping at Alberto or other unnamed players over media is not nearly as productive as opening things up into a true dialog. It could be a positive and historic move forward. Unfortunately, the brojos have no cred to organize such a thing. Maybe Nike, but with a non-Nike-affiliated moderator like Tony Reavis.

Note that Kenyans, for example, also train under energy deficits.

Example:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313468716_Association_between_Energy_Availability_and_Menstrual_Function_in_Elite_Kenyan_Runners

One table from above:

Table 4: Energy availability by distance and non-athletic category

Participant category N Mean(kcal/kgFFMday) SD

MidDis 12 33.26 11.02

LongDis 13 23.27 9.94

Non-Athlete 14 56.97 21.38

23 is crazy low. (And the stdev is 9, a few might be in the 15 range!)

Also, I'm sure there are many women who will lose their period just

from the mileage needed to be elite, despite eating plenty.

Good grief! We want to be treated equally until we don't. Stop it! Did she think she would run faster if she looked like the LF of Stanford? Maybe we should fatten up all the US women. All this hysteria is doing is hurting the chances of quality coaches taking on women. Stick with making picky bars and let the warriors run.

If people are okay with destroying a sport by devaluing hard work and pushing oneself, then let them do it. It's their business.

Middle of the Road wrote:

Anybody who is choosing to be elite/professional in the sport of distance running, male or female, will have to train their bodies to a state that science would consider slightly 'unhealthy' or at the very least, not optimal for health. Think about what distance running at that level does to the human body: creates hormone imbalances (for men and women), can cause heart related issues such as enlargement/increase stroke risk, leads to inevitable 'overuse' injuries and tendon/muscle issues.

You can't possibly expect perfect health if you're in this sport. C'mon. If you don't like what elite level running does to you, choose another sport or just run lower mileage for fun and fitness. I made the switch and am so glad I did.

Exactly

fakescientist wrote:

Note that Kenyans, for example, also train under energy deficits.

Example:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313468716_Association_between_Energy_Availability_and_Menstrual_Function_in_Elite_Kenyan_Runners

Thanks for the link. You made the best post in this thread.

"None of the athletes were amenorrheic."

This is incredible. Top Kenyan athletes did not lose their periods for 6 months in a row.

This seems to be hard evidence that the Nike Oregon Project was a failure for female teenagers.

Why does Shalane look the way she does? Who made her look so emaciated? Did this affect her womanly figure and health as a women? Did she choose this path as an independent women without male overlords and evil coaches? Can we get an interview with Shalane about why she chose to sacrifice her womanly health for the sake of Olympic medals?

We no longer accept 20 sentence run on paragraphs no matter what you have to say.

The inequality problem will be solved by 2081. And then I will try to fix the solution.

https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron_djvu.txt

athletes should not have to change their body for sport.

runners should not have to be thin, or train.

body builders should not have to have muscles beyond wimp.

cyclists should not have to have a skinny upper body and big butt and thighs.

gymnasts should not have a good figure and low center of gravity.

no athlete should be forced to change their body for anyone.

you should play pro sports and get long guaranteed contracts with any type of body you want.

everyone should have a guaranteed income of 100k.

and free medical, and get rid of all the businesses that make any type of pollution or use energy.

change the force of gravity, old people and disabled will be able to walk more easily.

put in a quota of at least 30 percent trans genders in all pro sports.

this message is brought to you by the democratic party of Venezuela. and the former CCCP.