Caitlin's Hyperessay 1 Proposal: Eating Disorders in Female Athletes

Over the past couple decades, the “ideal” female body in women’s figure skating and ice dance has changed drastically, going from healthy and “womanly,” to severely thin. I would argue that among the elite figure skaters competing today, at least half have some form of eating disorder, whether it’s anorexia, bulimia, disordered eating, the “female athlete triad” (when a female does not have a menstrual cycle, due to reduced calorie intake and excessive exercise), or a poor body image. All of these issues lead to obsessive and unhealthy behaviors and thoughts, and can have severe physical and psychological implications.
While weight issues are often discussed and researched in ballet and gymnastics, there seems to be a lack of any in depth reporting on eating disorders in ice-skating. Furthermore, among the competitive ice skater community, it is a well-known “fact” that many skaters have eating disorders, and that these behaviors are encouraged by many coaches. A few training centers are notorious for having entire training teams of anorexic females, and many coaches practice forms of abuse, such as telling girls to lose weight when they don’t need to, complementing girls on their extreme weight loss, and even weighing them publicly on scales. Besides pressures from coaches, skaters are sometimes told by judges that they would have a “more pleasing line” if they could lose weight. Recently, skaters weight has become a popular discussion topic on public skating forums, which, as I know from experience, are frequented by competitive skaters all the time. These forums are filled with insensitive discussions of who is too big or too small, and comments like “Skater X should really lose ten pounds.”
I also think that parents play a large role in skaters eating habits. Whether it’s because they want their skater to be successful at whatever cost, whether they don’t want to interfere with the coaches’ wishes, or whether they are truly in denial, most parents will deny there is anything wrong with their clearly anorexic daughter. In addition, skaters feel an enormous deal of pressure to be thin because most of their competitors and training mates are, and they feel that in order to “fit in,” have the “skater look,” or be competitive, they too must be unnaturally skinny. Also, at least in ice dance, I have witnessed male skaters making greatly insensitive comments about their own partners, as well as the female partners of their competitors.
I will expand my essay to look at the issue of eating disorders in ballet dance and gymnastics, and try to distinguish some of the causes as well as what is being done to address the problem. I also would like to show the problem of body issues in ice-skating into a number of other contexts. First, female ice skaters are usually of the age range that is most greatly affected by eating disorders in non-athletes (the high school and college years). Secondly, ice skaters are very competitive and often have perfectionist personalities, and problems arise from trying to achieve body “perfection.” Thirdly, ice-skating is an appearance based activity, and much like modeling and acting, the participants perform for the public, are judged on their looks, are shown on TV, and are photographed for magazines, commercials, and promotions. I think I can compare the issues involved with skating with those involved with the fashion industry and Hollywood. I also will take a look at what has been done lately in fashion shows to try to prevent underweight models, and see if this technique could apply to ice-skating competitions. Furthermore, the female body is emphasized excessively in today’s culture— the enormous increase in cosmetic surgery, the dozens of “women’s magazines” devoted to telling women how to lose weight, while selling us products to enhance our appearance, the tabloids that scrutinize actress’s every pound. To conclude my essay, I will look at how society encourages women to think about their appearance from a very young age, and also see how this ties in with other gender roles assigned to women.