Anorexia

Triathlon Forum
1

i train with this girl who is going to the hawaii ironman. she is extremely thin. she is a very driven young woman, and trains very hard, altho she doesn’t seem to have a clue about what she should do or try to do in swim training but that is another story.

anyway you can basically tell if this girl has put on 100grams she is that thin. this is a girl who has to swim 3.8km, bike 180kms and then run a marathon. generally most ironman athletes are NOT super thin like marathon runners etc. some of them can be quite muscly.

anyway, this girl’s weight undoubtedly affects her performance on the swim and bike as you actually require a lil bit of muscle mass to move in these particular sports.

do you remember those images of starving ethiopians who have the lil pot belly sticking out? well this is what she looks like in her togs. her stomach sticks out further than her breasts.

she is coached by a very well respected coach within nz. i am not sure how close this coach monitors this woman’s health though.

for an example of perhaps how obsessed and driven this woman is…she was back in the pool 2 days after competing in the ironman. most people usually take at LEAST a week off after an ironman, this goes for elites as well.

the reason why i talk about obsession is that for this woman obsession also seems like it might have a part to play with her body image.

i am unsure if i should approach her on this issue or what. but honestly i feel a lil sick whenever i see her in her togs with her skeletal arms and legs and pot belly. i am also concerned for her health and i am sure it is not helping her performance at all.

does anyone have any comments to make?

(copied and pasted from another forum i post on, so no offence to those people who claim to know something about ironmans :slight_smile:

2

She may be anorexic, but she may also be Celiac or similar - as undiagnosed and treated that can leave people emaciated with pot bellies. Either way it’s a hard one to breach, since if you say the wrong thing at the wrong time then there’s plenty of trouble to be had.

3

in my opinion, you should definetly say something… however, having said that, be VERY careful about what you say and how you say it. generally people with anorexia have other underlying mental health and self image issues that go along with it that go WAY deeper than anorexia. additionally, given the fact you’re a guy and she’s a female, it could also be much more of a touchy situation.

with that in mind, it might not be a bad idea to ask her about her eating plan and that sort of thing (not in a very direct way, but in a way that makes it seem like you’re interested in what she does so that you could possibly adapt it to help your training since she’s a hawaii qualifier, etc., etc… or something along those lines that helps build a repoirte (sp?) and builds her confidence). you may want to suggest that she see a nutritionist or a doc to possibly gain a performance advantage from her fueling plan. anyways, hopefully this helps and is somewhat useful for you (and useful for her).

it says alot that your’e willing to help her with whatever possible issue there may be.

4

It’s tough. You really have to be careful how you approach it. I was anorexic in high school and there wasn’t anything anyone could tell me that was going to change the way I thought about food. At the time I was on my way to being a college volleyball player and I believed that with each pound I lost that meant it would be that much easier for me to jump higher because there’d be less to lift of the ground. Any mention of me being skinny I took as a compliment. And the mind is incredibly strong, I never felt fatigued at that time but I must have been, I wasn’t eating anything. Numerous people confronted me on it and I just told them they were crazy or I just ignored them. It wasn’t until I went to college and were surrounded by teammates who ate every single thing that was put in front of them that I began to feel really self conscious about just eating some steamed rice for dinner and these girls who were a lot heavier than me could jump just as high if not higher than me. My point is that you never now what will trigger in someone to realize they are being self-destructive. I was really lucky and wasn’t anorexic for very long but no one confronting me did the trick. It was something I had to come to on my own.

Best bet may be trying to get her coach to make changes to her diet (with the help of a nutritionist?). Maybe he can suggest an eating program which he believes will improve her performance (without mentioning her need to gain weight) and he can gradually increase the number of calories she consumes.

Good luck and I hope she works through it.

5

Nothing you or the coach says will make any difference. As one poster stated the anorexia is a manefestation of underlying mental health and self image issues. She will make changes when she wants to and therein lies the problem. How to get her to that point where she wants to change? You have to start with someone very close to her that she trusts and respects, i.e. family, boyfriend, husband and get her to realize and then admit she has a problem. After that is a very long journey that will last the rest of her life.

6

she is coached by jenny rose…who used to be a world champ in triathlon.

a few of us have joked that she needs to eat more pies. ie the new zealand fatty mince ones.

she does seem to be real obsessive about her training etc and this also seems to be borne out in her body image.

7

OCD and anorexia often go hand in hand…

8

seems weird she could compete at that level eating so little.

9

her strength is her running and it seems to me that she might be worried that if she puts on weight her running will slow. she must really get pummeled in the swim at the start.

10

fulla, this is indeed a fairly serious situation; one that I can speak on from personal experience.

I suffered from anorexia throughout high school (I’m a guy); at one point I lost 30 pounds over summer vacation. I always told people, “I’ll just wait until swim season starts, then I’ll start eating again!” That was a lie.

You need to be careful how you approach this, but you also HAVE to do something. The most ideal situation would be to get a doctor/coach/nutritionist to speak to her about weight, strength, performance, etc. You also need to find some way to convince her that she DOES NOT LOOK GOOD.

A major part of it is simply distorted body image (duh). I NEVER thought that I looked thin. Even today (5’10", 153 lbs, <5% body fat, 10 days out from IM), I still go through phases when I think I have a belly and am too fat. I remember when I got my swim team photos from sophomore year in HS; my mom started to cry when she saw them.

You need to make her see how important eating right can be. You probably don’t remember, but on this forum several months ago, I started a topic titled something like “what do you eat on a 2-2.5 hour ride?”. Why did I start this thread? Because on most rides of the length, I’m uncomfortable ingesting any calories, because I didn’t feel that the exercise is enough to warrant extra calories. I started taking some carbo-pro on me rides. Lo and behold I started riding better! Amazing! You (or someone) need to make her see how much her performance will improve with proper fueling.

But, as AndyPants pointed out above, anorexia and obsessive-compulsion are often linked (I don’t like the term OCD, because I prefer not to think of it as a disorder). I didn’t REALLY start to get better until one day, a nutritionist I was seeing said, “I can’t help you. You don’t have anorexia, you have OCD.” That really opened my eyes, and she was absolutely right. Now my obsessive-compulsivness is mostly channelled into exercise and tri-related activities, whereas it used to be channelled into my body and controlling my calories. You can’t really choose what you obsess about. If it is indeed obsessivness that she has, hopefully with some help and knowledge she can transfer her energies into healthier (such as being a better athlete). If she does have obsessive-compulsion, identifying that fact now will make things a lot easier. Does she do any of the other classic OC things, like checking doors/locks/ovens, or washing hands?

I’m probably rambling a bit. I’m just trying to say that you should try to help her. If it were me, and I knew her fairly well, I’d go up to her and just start talking. If you don’t feel you know her well enough to do that, hopefully you can find someone who does.

Thanks for trying to help her. Untreated, this could lead to serious health problems. I knew a girl who died from the disease.

-Colin

11

Fulla, I am a psychologist at a high school in California. I don’t consider myself an expert, but I have had some experience with eating disorders. This also hits me personally as a long time friend in the sport just died on Saturday in part from complications of Anorexia.

Anorexia is a serious mental and physical disorder. The underlying causes are deep and very painful. Your friend is in need of help. I disagree that nothing can be done until she is ready to get better. Sometimes the expression of Anorexia (extreme weight loss) is the person’s only way of communicating their pain. She may in fact me asking for help in the only way she is able.

My question to you would be, “Is helping your friend worth your relationship with her?”. I say this because confronting her, even in a gentle way, could likely alienate you from her forever. I have had to make this decision and its not easy. In my opinion your friend’s health, in fact her very life, may be in the balance. If this were someone I cared about I would take the chance and let her know your concerns. You should also confront her coach.

I should also say that disorders such as Anorexia have a generally poor prognosis for full remission. In other words, this is something your friend will likely be dealing with to some degree for the rest of her life.

Good luck,

Gary Mc

12

Hmm. I guess I could think about emailing her coach. I don’t know her coach personally. I have discussed the issue with someone else who trains with us but is currently overseas and who has the same coach.

She was also surprised and quite shocked that this woman was back training 2 days after doing an ironman.

I have noticed certain obsessive things really. Well to me they seem obsessive. I only really know her through swimming training tho. And these things include:
-not having the rest our coach has given us, instead just goes whenever, often this is 5 to 10 secs rest
-this includes ‘sprints’, which have a 10 sec rest for her when they are 25m on 60s
-never doing drills because i assume she thinks they are a waste of time and that time is better spent swimming up n down at the same pace
-not even attemptint to streamline or tumbleturn properly cos you ‘dont have to do this in a ironman’
-using paddles to gain ‘strength’, yet not doing sprint sets properly

she is suffering from a stress fracture currently i think. she also goes to the gym apparently.

i first began to notice perhaps ocd when combined with what i said above, she would get real agitated if i was in the same lane as her and a set was just beginning and i hadnt pushed off the wall yet (i was leading and i am a much stronger swimmer)

13

high maintance.

14

I disagree that nothing can be done until she is ready to get better.
You might want to learn a little more about eating disorders. It’s just like alcoholism… no matter what you do, they won’t stop until they want to.

15

DA,

I appreciate your opinion and your concern that I get additional training.

In my experience, many people with addictive disorders do want to change, but they don’t know how. They have become so caught up in their particular behavior that changing is more frightening than continuing. They often exhibit behaviors as a way of communicating their desire to get better, even if they are not in touch with that feeling on a conscious level. In extreme cases, a person may need to be forced into treatment in order to keep them alive until they are ready to accept help and “want to change”. I have been involved in cases in which a student has gone into treatment multiple times before accepting their diagnosis and participating in their recovery. Had the parent done nothing until the student was “Ready” they would be attending their child’s funeral instead of graduation.

Gary Mc

16

Ok - you think it’s wise to tell a woman with self-esteem issues, mental health concerns, plus unknown physical issues and then try to convince her that SHE DOES NOT LOOK VERY GOOD? What, pray tell, do you think will happen then?

A guy displaying short term anorexia behavior does not equal the experience of an adult woman with the full blown disorder. If someone threatens suicide, you intervene. Anorexia, you don’t.

Fulla- If you just can’t stand butting out, try channeling your concern by speaking to her coach - in private. If it’s obvious to you, they are also aware. She may want to share with you how it’s being handled but she may respect the athlete’s privacy and ask you to respect it as well.

Unless you are her close friend, family member, her mental health therapist, coach or SO, shut the hell up. You have no idea of her mental state, whether she is currently seeing a psychologist or even if she has been diagnosed. Don’t blunder about in her potentially fragile mind. It’s a complicated issue and unless you’e qualified, more damage can occur.

B - anoretic from age 4 to 34 - and now on the wagon.

17

no, hypervigilant. Vastly different.

B

18

Well, thinking that I’m different and not in tune with the issue just because I’m a guy is a bit short-sighted on your part. And, as I said above, I don’t have anorexia, I have obsessive-compulsive “disorder”.

-C

19

Not in tune, but different from the entrenched behavior of an adult woman. Perhaps your OCD includes thin skin.

B

20

Not in tune, but different from the entrenched behavior of an adult woman. Perhaps your OCD includes thin skin.

B

Hah! That’s actually pretty funny. I don’t think anybody would ever describe me as having thin skin! :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

Anyway, you are right, long-term entrenched anorexia is different than OCD manifesting itself as anorexia. But I still wonder why you are specifying the long-term behaviour of a woman? Bad body image is bad body image, no matter what the gender.

-Colin