In light of the recent Rio 2016 Olympic Games, former members of the US Womens' Swim Team are speaking out about the prevalence of disordered eating and body image issues among female athletics. More specifically, they speak to competitive swimming, where often individuals push themselves to extremes and experience gruelling training in their quest for top performance, meanwhile they spend almost every day in a bathing suit and develop a muscular built physique which may not be in line with a young woman's views of what femininity and beauty should look like.
"“Binging and purging was my, I guess, outlet,” said Hyman, 37. “Part of it was my own insecurities; part of it was my own control, the sense of being in control or something I could control. It wasn’t strictly just a body image issue or strictly just, ‘I’m trying to perform better.’ As an athlete I think there were other emotional challenges that I manifested into my eating disorder as a way of coping. It wasn’t something that I was necessarily secretive about. My coaches were aware, my parents were aware, and I wasn’t shy about it. One of the things I’d always prided myself on was discipline...
Jennifer Carter, Ohio State University Sports Medicine Center’s director of sport psychology, agrees there are specific risk factors for eating disorders in female athletes, such as a belief that thinness equates to better performance (whereas in male athletes more muscularity equates to better performance), revealing uniforms and, sometimes, a type of perfectionist personality."
For the full article, click here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/rio-2016/2016/08/03/us-womens-swim-team-body-image-eating-disorders-and-supporting-each-other/88048534/
"“Binging and purging was my, I guess, outlet,” said Hyman, 37. “Part of it was my own insecurities; part of it was my own control, the sense of being in control or something I could control. It wasn’t strictly just a body image issue or strictly just, ‘I’m trying to perform better.’ As an athlete I think there were other emotional challenges that I manifested into my eating disorder as a way of coping. It wasn’t something that I was necessarily secretive about. My coaches were aware, my parents were aware, and I wasn’t shy about it. One of the things I’d always prided myself on was discipline...
Jennifer Carter, Ohio State University Sports Medicine Center’s director of sport psychology, agrees there are specific risk factors for eating disorders in female athletes, such as a belief that thinness equates to better performance (whereas in male athletes more muscularity equates to better performance), revealing uniforms and, sometimes, a type of perfectionist personality."
For the full article, click here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/rio-2016/2016/08/03/us-womens-swim-team-body-image-eating-disorders-and-supporting-each-other/88048534/
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