Eating Disorders In Sports Essay

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Athletes often go through sever psychological and physical stress while participating in sports that could possibly be due to poor coaching, anxiety, and the athletic competition. Athletes maintain a healthy lifestyle because they are constantly training and working to stay in shape. They need certain foods to fuel their bodies so when they are exercising they have enough energy to perform a task. However, athletes begin to develop eating disorders when the pressure of athletic competition is put on an athlete plus the cultural emphasis on thinness. An eating disorder is a condition characterized by a reoccurring disturbance of eating or an eating-related behavior that significantly harms physical health or psychosocial functioning. In today`s …show more content…

Anorexia nervosa is a disorder where a person is afraid of gaining weight so they restrict their diet and stop consuming calories. Bulimia nervosa is persistent inappropriate compensatory actions to prevent weigh gain such as vomiting and excessively working out. Finally, binge-eating disorder is reoccurring incidents of binge eating without compensatory behaviors but with noticeable distress with binge eating. All of these conditions are due to the fact that athletes often become unstable and overwhelmed causing them to make poor dietary …show more content…

Statistics were proven that at least 40% of associate institutions informed at least one case of anorexia or bulimia in their athletic programs. Other studies showed that 13% of male athletes and 10% of female athletes began binge-eating weekly, and 25% of male athletes attempted to lose weight by going in saunas and steam baths. Likewise, 4.4% of female athletes made themselves throw up in order to lose weight. Also, 2% of athletes starting taking steroids to increase and improve their performance. However, in today`s generation, eating disorders have become more common and the risk of these conditions in athletes has

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