Eating Disorders in Gymnasts

Eating Disorders in Gymnasts

At a gymnastics meet in Budapest, a U.S. judge commented that gymnast Christy Henrich would have to lose weight if she wanted to make the Olympic team. On July 26, 1994, Christy Henrich died of multiple organ failure. She had lost a long battle with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that involves extreme weight loss, restricted food intake, and an intense fear of becoming fat. The American Psychiatric Association outlines four diagnostic criteria for anorexia. The first is refusal to maintain body weight. The second is intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even though underweight. The third is denial of the seriousness of low body weight. The fourth is in postmenarcheal females, amenorrhea, for example the absence of at least three consecutive menstrual cycles.

There are many different characteristics associated with a person who has been diagnosed with anorexia. Anorectics have a distorted image of their bodies. In other words, they see themselves as fat even when they are emaciated. They also have an obsessive preoccupation with food and thinness. Anorectics suffer from depression, mood disturbance, chronic feelings of low self-esteem, and insomnia or other sleeping disorders. Another common symptom is amenorrhea. This is a loss of menses or not achieving menarche if the disorder begins before puberty. Anorectics also impose extreme dieting or exercise practices on themselves.

Bulimia nervosa is another eating disorder that includes a behavior pattern of alternating extreme bingeing, or overeating, with self-induced vomiting, fasting or abuse of laxatives or diuretics. Eating in a short period of time and having a sense o...

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...o train world-class athletes, but not at the cost of our children. Somehow change has got to come. Gold medals are good, but we’re talking about people’s lives. The change has to come in the whole system: judges, officials, coaches, everybody” (Ryan 83).

USA gymnastics officials claim that gymnastics by itself does not cause eating disorders. This is correct, but there are aspects of the sport that predispose elite gymnasts to eating disorders. These include: the high-achiever personality type of the elite gymnast, the aesthetic standards or judges, spoken or unspoken pressure from parents, and the abusive methods of coaches. All these aspects put together are extremely dangerous. This results in elite gymnasts resorting to dangerous methods of weight control and putting their own lives in danger. It is not worth it. A gold medal is not worth dying for.