Eating Disorders in Athletes

Eating disorders tend to affect athletes under the age of 30 years old. Male and female participants are both prone to this issue. "Eating disorders may arise through the self-perceptions of the athlete as to the appearance of his or her body, or through the direction of a coach, the stresses of the competition, or similar pressures." Athletes are more vulnerable than most to eating disorders because many athletics require a certain body type. The commitments elite athletes must live up to, the physical demands and the prospect of achievement tends to attract perfectionists. They also endure pressure from trainers and coaches to record personal data of their weight, dimensions of the body, physique, and percent body fat. Athletes can become obsessed with their bodies and pick them apart. Many feel having the perfect body will help them win the competitions or gain support. Many athletes are even concerned about parts of their physical appearance that will have no impact on their particular performance. The athletics in which appearance is part of the score or is present by implication tends to have the most athletes with eating disorders. In dance girls wear very fitted clothes and in many times short clothes and feel judged. In gymnastics they must wear leotards. Man of these athletes have eating disorders.
Athletics with weight limits also tend to cause problems. Sports like wrestling and boxing where one competes against their weight must not fluctuate. Also, there are some sports that require the athlete to be very lean. Anorexia is the disorder many of them turn to. This is ironic because it destroys the physical systems. Anorexia can lead to malnutrition, an interruption in the women's periods, risk of osteoporosis, or even death. Bulimia also does not help the athlete to succeed because the athlete will have injuries in their mouth and esophagus. They will also many times be depressed and dehydrated. Many athletes also go on crash diets where they disrupt their normal eating in order to have rapid weight loss. This denies the body of essential fuels, vitamins, and minerals. This will also not contribute to any success of the athlete.

Osama bin Laden

Justice has been done to Osama. He was fired down in Pakistan. Obama was given a lead about where he could possibly be back in August and has been following up with it since then. They found him last week and killed him yesterday and brought his body back to the United States. There was a lot of celebration at ground zero because justice was done for those who lost loved ones to the tragedy of September 11, 2001. The fire fighters of New York City were on their fire trucks watching this celebration. This really warmed my heart. No American soldiers were harmed during the killing of Osama and they did their best to avoid any civilian injuries.
I like that Obama made it clear that Osama was not the leader of the Muslims (or Islam). He was a mass murderer and the leader of Al Qaeda. He declared war against and killed mass amounts of Pakistan's people. I think that is very important because many Muslims are discriminated against. It is ridiculous that many of them cannot walk through airports without being suspected and checked significantly more than the white Americans.

Dramatic changes

Eating disorders have become increasingly common among adolescense. In these years they tend to be more self-conscious about how they look and our uncomfortable in their skin. "This can be especially true when they are going through puberty, and undergo dramatic physical changes and face new social pressures" (kidshealth.org). Adolescence are becoming more and more obsessed with their appearance. Young woman are the most prone to having an eating disorder. There are ways parents can help prevent these disorders from occuring. They can help by "nurturing their self-esteem, and encouraging healthy attitudes, about nutrition and appearance. Help must be solicited immediately. One of the main problems is that these kids are normally good at hiding these disorders for months or even years from their families and friends. They are very common in the US. 1 or 2 out of every 100 kids will struggle with one, most commonly annorexia or bulimia. Also, excessive excercise is an eating disorder as well as self-induced vomiting or laxative use. People with annorexia tend to be underweight while people with bulimia tend to maintain a normal weight. "Binge eating disorders, food phobia, and body image disorders are also becoming increasingly common in adolescense."

Dancers with Eating Disorders

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlnKW2zlxSg

This video really got to me. I remember seeing the movie Center Stage which is part of the clip in this video. I remember that was the first time I figured out what exactly an eating disorder was. The star dancer of the company (not the star of the film) was throwing up everything she ate. She tried pizza for the first time and loved it, but of course threw it up. There was a lot of pressure from her mom to be skinny and be the best. In truth, she did not love dance anymore. She was fulfilling her mom's dream. She was hurting herself for something she was good at and didn't have the heart for. Other girls were told they were too fat to stay in the school or to make it as a professional. The pressure all the girls went through to be a dancer caused many of them to have issues and harm themselves. Annorexia is extrememly common among ballerinas. The ballerina image more than any other type of dancer is to be long and skinny. This is so they can be lifted by men and because it is pretty. This image isn't meant for all people, some people are big boned and will never look like that. This movie, as a dancer, made me think. I never want to end up like that. I have been very fortunate with my family history and environment, which has caused me to have very few issues. As a dancer, I eat very healthy but I also know that it is okay to treat myself. I am not a ballerina but I do ballet. It is good to be muscular, healthy, and strong.

Further Exploring

Today, I took the time to further explore the general information about eating disorders. I read about three general and common eating disorders; Anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. Anorexia is self-starvation. People have an  irrational fear that if they eat, the will get fat. People who suffer from bulimia try to prevent weight gain by following a cycle of dieting, binge eating, and then purging. These are also behavioral disorders. These people's eating is not the only thing affected. They suffer in many other ways such as the body system being disturbed, their minds are affected, also their everyday social lives are altered. They act in certain ways that they would never have before. These are behavioral disorders because these people feel compelled to do this to themselves and continuously do these behaviors. These disorders are lethal. Anorexia has the highest death rate of any psychiatric condition. The anorexics that purge as well are at the most risk because they are starved and throw up. Some of the complications that come with starving are slow heart rate, low blood pressure, faintness, dizziness, intolerance to cold, thinning hair, constipation, weakness and fatigue, and loss of monthly period. Many times these people do not only have eating disorders, but it is also accompanied by depression or anxiety. In other words, many of these people also have mood disorders. Eating disorders are dangerous and most of the time require extensive help to overcome.

Eating Disorders- Topic

I feel eating disorders is a huge issue in the world today. Especially, as a dancer it is an issue I see almost on a daily basis. People become obsessed with what they look like. On a surface level people are obsessed with their appearance. Today, I learned that people with eating disorders are not just worried about this. They most of the time have a much larger reason. It goes deeper and beyond insecurity. It is more times than not an issue of control. People with eating disorders feel that their eating is the one thing in their life they can control. No one can take that away from them. Many times these disorders stem from a rough childhood or a tense family life. Sometimes they are caused by living in an overly critical environment. Also it could be caused by being abused or having someone close to you be abused. Eating disorders are ways of coping. I learned that 8-10 million people today suffer from eating disorders. They are most common among women. This will be the topic I will be exploring this quarter.

Race

After taking several tests to discover any hidden race biases, I recieved results that I feel truly represent who I am. My results classified me who is neutral and does not prefer one race over the other. When I was young I went to Tamarak Day Camp. I came home after camp and told my parents I met a new friend. They asked me to describe what she looked like because they wanted to know If I met Jasmine Jordan. They were being nice and had no intention of being racist, but were trying to ask me questions like "Did she have darker skin" to see if that's who I met. My response to them was, "She has a lot of braids." My parents to this day pride themselves on how they raised me to see how everyone is equal and I never judge or think less of anyone due to race or religion. I think this shows that from a young age I never felt that the color of ones skin defined them.

After closely examining some of the Black and White perspectives I see a lot of similarities to the packets we just read. Something that was mentioned in the packet but really expanded on in the articles I just looked at, was that there is a major difference in the amount of married black women to the amount of married white women. This was shocking to me. I would never have made that connection. In one of the articles a black lady was describing how black people tend to have many single moms.  She was explaining how she feels they are not raised and expected to be successful. This was very sad to me because everyone deserves a happy ending and an equal opportunity for success. There is also a much greater population of HIV and AIDS among black people which I thought was shocking. How does one's color affect the amount of people with a certain sexually transmitted disease? It just doesn't make sense to me.

In the white perspective there are many differences than I read today in the article. Today I read about a white boy hanging a noose outside a library and constant attacks of race. In the packet I read about how white people are aware of the past, yet they are trying to move forward past it. They did not want the guilt of their ancestors, but still did have sympathy for the black people. In these articles it seemed as if times really have not changed and improved much, which is really disheartening.