Why Do They Feel this Way?

Hi and welcome back!

This time on my blog, we will talk about why athletes feel like they need to eat the way they do or why they feel like they need to have a certain body type. Below is an interesting video from YouTube that helps explain a little bit of the how athletes feel, particularly females.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqdbzqpc3QM

This video is interesting because first off it brings in a sport that not many people would believe the athletes playing this sport would have an eating disorder. It shows that no matter what, athletes in general are affected by eating disorders or their own body image.

Next, I’d like to mention how she says that “female athletes feel the need to look a certain way from society and from their teammates”. It’s very intriguing because it’s a true fact. Female athletes don’t want to be big they want to be small and not look muscular. I’m an athlete myself and I used to have people comment about how broad my shoulders were and I would hate it. It made me feel like I shouldn’t be like that and should be more petite.

Athletes have a certain image they feel they need to look like and that’s because society makes them believe that. Society’s image of a male athlete is tall, defined, more muscle mass, and thin. For females, people believe that they should be confident and stand tall or seem put together and they should be skinny but muscular. This is what society believes that athletes should look like but what they don’t understand is that not every athlete can look like the “perfect” athlete and still perform to their best.

The reality of an athlete’s body image is that athletes come in all different sizes. When you look at football players, they all are different sizes like the quarterback is usually thinner than a lineman. This goes for females also like in gymnastics, you’ll see some taller and thinner gymnast whereas there can also be short and more muscular gymnast.

Societies image of an athlete is what makes it hard to look like an actual athlete.

Athletes fill these looks into their heads and they start thinking that they need to look this specific way in order to be accepted by society. This isn’t what an athlete looks like; they aren’t thin all the time and not all male athletes are tall and defined.

The last thing I would like to bring up about this topic is that eating disorders lead to different mental illnesses. In the video above, the volleyball player talked about how she got very depressed and had to take time off from games and practice to get better.

I found this article that helps explain a little bit more of what I was trying to say.

https://www.leaguenetwork.com/athletes-body-image/

The article above does bring in how coaches are a big influence but that’ll be a discussion for another time. The next time we meet well start getting into the sports and certain athletes that have come out about their disorders.

Below is a picture found off of Google.