Hi and welcome back to my blog Eating Disorders within our Sports. For this post I’ve decided to give you all some information that might help you understand the situation a little better.
To start us off I’m going to name a few of the eating disorders that affect athletes today. I found this article that the NCAA posted about eating disorders. The top three that they said affect athletes are Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and Binge-eating Disorder. These will be the eating disorders that are commonly talked about on this blog.
http://www.ncaa.org/sport-science-institute/mind-body-and-sport-eating-disorders
Anorexia Nervosa will be the first one we talk about. Anorexia is a very common eating disorder among young female athletes. This disorder is similar to a phobia because people with it are afraid to gain weight.
The next one we’ll talk about is Bulimia Nervosa which involves eating but after one will either throw it up in secret or exercise until they are at the weight they prefer.
The last eating disorder that is often related to sports is Binge-Eating Disorder. This disorder is when people continuously eats food. This is the opposite of the other two because it’s people who can’t stop eating.
Okay, now that you know the disorders, why is this a major issue in sports?
What people and the athletes affected by these disorders don’t know is that this could kill them. What it’ll do is cause failure within their organs and they’ll stop working. Athletes train a crazy amount; elite gymnast must be home-schooled because of the insane amount that they train. If they are training this intensely but eating very little, then how can they be performing at their very best? To answer that question, they can’t. There’s no way that an athlete will perform to their potential if they are ruining their bodies.
I have added an article that I found on YouTube that includes a little bit more about eating disorders and why they’re so common. In the video, it goes over “lean sports” and that a majority of them are involved with eating disorders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B7Low4jfsY
So, now that you know more about the disorders that affect athletes, the next question is why do athletes do this to themselves? Well my friends that’s a question for our next blog post. Come back next time and I’ll have more answers for you.
Eating Disorders within our Sports 