Eating disorders rising amongst college athletes
A recent study published in The Sports Journal revealed that eating disorders have significantly increased to affect up to 84% of collegiate athletes.
Sports culture strongly emphasizes the physical fitness of athletes' bodies so that they are able to competitively participate in intensive activities. To achieve the desired level of strength or the “perfect” body, athletes frequently engage in extreme diets and exercise regimens. However, the common idealization of an "athletic body" in today’s sports culture leads many athletes to engage in disordered eating.
Eating disorders (EDs) are clinical severe conditions associated with pernicious eating behavior that negatively affects one's health, emotions, and basic ability to function in day-to-day life. The most common eating disorders are anorexia nervosa, binge-eating disorder, and bulimia nervosa, which are becoming more prevalent among collegiate athletes.
“Because many athletes' main priority is their sport, they may develop a competitive nature to appear a certain way, or maintain a particular physique,” said Dr. Melissa Smith, licensed Psychologist and Eating disorder Specialist at Balance Health & Healing Clinic.
The perceived need to maintain a particular physique is exacerbated by the contagion effect, a psychological phenomenon in which behavior is mimicked in groups. Athletes are influenced by and imitate the diet and exercise patterns they see in other athletes who possess the “ideal” physique. Thus, the contagion effect develops and maintains cultural expectations to look a certain way as an athlete, encouraging athletes to push themselves into potentially harmful eating habits to achieve a particular physique.
“The main explanation for this tendency is that female athletes are more subjected to socio-cultural pressure to diet and be thin, while male athletes tend to be more concerned with physical fitness and masculinity,” said Ksenia Power, professor at Temple University.
For many sports, such as cheerleading, athletes are held to high expectations to fit a very specific physique in order to be successful in the sport. Former cheerleader and UCLA student Emma Chavez fell into disordered eating due to the constant pressure she felt to attain the thin and muscular build expected of cheerleaders.
“Cheerleading revolved around weight and body image, so I felt the need to be the smallest version of myself and would constantly compare myself to the other athletes who were in the same position as me in my sport,” Chavez said. “I would restrict myself from my favorite foods and didn’t let myself splurge; the days that I did splurge or when I failed to stick to my diet, I would come home and cry.”
It is often difficult to identify when individuals are suffering from eating disorders. In student-athletes, it is very common that maladaptive eating and compulsive exercise remain undetected and thus progress in severity over time.
Among student-athletes specifically, the demands of being a student exacerbate the negative effects of eating disorders and compensatory behaviors, such as self-induced vomiting, fasting and using laxatives or supplements to lose weight.
Eating disorders negatively affect one’s physical and mental well-being as well as athletic performance and thus are highly detrimental to student-athletes who find their joy and sense of identity from playing their sport.
In addition to the harm eating disorders pose on health, eating disorders also lead to significant negative behavioral changes. Malnutrition drains energy from the body, which may contribute to low moods and poorer academic and athletic performances. Malnutrition also shortens attention span, decreasing a student’s ability to participate and build relationships in an academic setting. Furthermore, disordered eating also triggers emotional outbursts, making students more prone to feelings of frustration, irritability, anxiety, and depression.
Recently, healthcare screening tools have been developed to attempt to combat the rise in student-athlete eating disorders. The Female Athlete Triad Coalition created an 11-question screening tool that can evaluate a female athlete’s preoccupation with body weight, dietary restriction, menstrual dysfunction, bone injuries, and low bone mineral density.
Through the implementation of eating disorder screening protocols and examinations, athletic trainers can detect eating disorders earlier and help student-athletes fuel their bodies in a healthy manner. Developments like these, as well as increased awareness for student-athlete eating disorders, are vital to the effort to decrease the prevalence of maladaptive eating and exercise behaviors in student-athletes.
"Re-learning normal eating habits and coping skills can take a long period of time and often requires lots of support from professionals, friends, and family,” said a nutritionist from The National Eating Disorders Association. “Moving forward is key, however, slow it might be.”