The SJ athletic department needs a nutritionist
photo by Kiersten Olson
Each sport calls for a different level of fitness and a different body type. So, athletes will often train their bodies both through exercise and diet to be the ideal fit for their sport.
Athletes are generally viewed as healthier because of their consistent exercise, but where food is concerned, athletes are actually more likely to have unhealthy eating practices or eating disorders than non-athletes, according to a study done by the NCAA in 1999.
The National Eating Disorders Association, also known as the NEDA, explains on their website that there are certain sports that see higher rates of eating disorders. These include sports that rely on appearance, like gymnastics or diving; sports that encourage members to be in a certain weight class, like wrestling and bodybuilding; and sports that require endurance, like running and swimming.
Though girls are more likely to develop eating disorders than boys, this isn’t a problem limited to our female athletes. The NEDA estimates that a staggering thirty-three percent of high-school boys in weight class or aesthetic sports such as wrestling, swimming, crew, and gymnastics, suffer from eating disorders.
Because of statistics like these, many colleges have hired nutritionists to work with their sports teams. This helps ensure that their athletes are feeding their bodies to be an ideal fit for the sport but in a healthy way.
“The NEDA estimates that a staggering thirty-three percent of high-school boys in weight class or aesthetic sports such as wrestling, swimming, crew, and gymnastics, suffer from eating disorders.”
Girls cross country is one of the sports with a high prevalence of eating disorders. Anna Fischer, a former SJHS student and runner who now runs for the Notre Dame Cross Country team, described her observations of disordered eating among runners.
“What can happen is one girl drops some weight and she’s running some fast time, but then she might get injured. What other people might see is oh she dropped weight and got faster. They only look at that part,” Anna said.
Notre Dame has a nutritionist for their women’s cross country team, but Anna believes there should be one on the high school level too. She explained that she worries that high schoolers find their health information online, which can lead to fad diets.
“When the internet is your only resource, it’s easy to go down the wrong track. But when you have an experienced nutritionist as a resource, you’ll have a better chance of being a healthier athlete,” she said.
Weight is also on the minds of wrestlers. It’s strategic for wrestlers to lose weight right before a meet so that they’ll be put in a lower weight class and can compete with a smaller boy—therefore having the upper hand.
Some of our own SJHS wrestlers practice cutting weight before a meet to take advantage of this strategy, but they may not be getting the proper support to do this healthily.
An anonymous SJHS wrestler explained his experience with making weight. “There's a lot of exercise that goes into it, but diet-wise, you have to water-load—which is drinking extra water so you flush out sodium. You eat lighter for sure, you definitely try to stay under 1000 calories a day if you can,” he began.
But he admitted that if it’s two or three days before the meet and someone hasn’t been maintaining their weight goal, they may have to start going to extremes.
“The athletes get conditioned to cut all this weight to meet certain guidelines, and I think those habits can carry on to adulthood too”
“If you mess up and eat too much, you have to fast and eventually, you get to a point where your body feels like it’s eating itself or your nutrition's low and you can't think straight and you feel really slow and tired, but you just have to get through it,” the anonymous student said.
He shared that the wrestling team did have a nutrition meeting at the beginning of the season that a professional spoke at, and many of the boys follow the professional’s diet advice. But, others don’t and are making unhealthy dietary decisions.
Some of the wrestlers’ weight loss habits would be considered “disordered eating.” And while making a lower weight class is an advantage in the sport, it’s only effective if the wrestler maintains his or her health enough to perform.
Mrs. Erin VerHage, a registered dietician for Spectrum Lakeland hospital, explained how starting unhealthy habits, like cutting a lot of weight in a short time period, as an adolescent can have long-lasting effects.
“The athletes get conditioned to cut all this weight to meet certain guidelines, and I think those habits can carry on to adulthood too, and lead to body image issues and just disordered eating patterns in general,” Mrs. Verhage said.
She explained that since athletes aren’t taught nutrition in school unless they specifically take the nutrition class, they may be making decisions that detract from their ability to perform in a sport.
With the higher risk of eating disorders for athletes and the lack of nutrition taught to students, it’s disappointing that there isn’t a nutritionist at the high school to speak to sports teams. If coaches are going to encourage their athletes to lose or gain weight, it’s their responsibility to ensure it’s done healthily. So, rather than spending our next grant on scoreboards or facilities, the athletic department should invest in a nutritionist to ensure the well-being of our athletes.