Athletes and Eating Disorders

By Bobby Shriver

When it comes to maintaining fitness standards, athletes are always raising the bar. As we watch elite athletes compete, it’s natural to assume that they represent the apex of physical and mental health in our society. Unfortunately, the connection between athletes and eating disorders is becoming more widespread. Believe it or not, up to 45% of female athletes and 19% of male athletes struggle with eating disorders, according to the Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology.

While the association between athletes and eating disorders may surprise you, when you consider the societal expectations, pressure, and media influence athletes face day in and day out, the reality of eating disorders in athletes gets easier to understand. On top of this, many prominent athletes are starting to talk about wider struggles with eating disorders in the sports community. As this awareness spreads, it’s clear that an eating disorder can still make a debilitating impact on your life, even if you’re a world-class athlete.

Understanding Eating Disorders in Athletes

The American Psychiatric Association defines eating disorders as behavioral conditions that cause persistent, severe disturbances in eating behavior, leading to distressing feelings and thoughts. Consequently, eating disorders can have serious effects on your body and hurt your ability to function physically, emotionally, and socially. While a variety of eating disorders exist, there are a handful that impact athletes the most, including:

• Anorexia Nervosa – If you’re struggling with anorexia nervosa, that means you participate in highly restrictive food and calorie intake, usually leading to extreme weight loss. Many people with anorexia become fixated on losing weight due to pervasive fears of becoming overweight, often exercising excessively or starving themselves as a result. Athletes in sports that strongly emphasize body image, weight, and aesthetics are usually more susceptible to struggling with anorexia.
• Bulimia Nervosa – Bulimia nervosa is another eating disorder focused on limiting caloric intake. Potentially life-threatening, bulimia often looks like eating large amounts of food and then purging the food shortly afterward through vomiting or bowel movements. This cycle of bingeing and purging foods can cause several negative health consequences such as toothy decay, dehydration, and heart issues. Because regular food intake is required to maintain an athlete’s training regimen, bulimia is usually the most common eating disorder among athletes and one of the easiest to hide.
• Binge Eating Disorder – Overeating on an extreme level, binge eating disorder (BED) is characterized by eating copious amounts of food quickly and compulsively. If you have BED, your food consumption feels out of control, often leading to bingeing food in secret due to embarrassment associated with your eating habits. Because of strict dieting restrictions, some athletes can actually experience increased urges to binge.

Peer Pressure and Eating Disorders: A Slippery Slope for Athletes

As mentioned earlier, there are several factors that can lead to disordered eating behaviors (and eventually eating disorders) among athletes, reports the International Journal of Exercise Science. Among the largest culprits are body dissatisfaction, perfectionism, caloric restriction, compulsive exercise, and aiming for a specific weight to enhance competitive performance. In pursuit of corroborating these factors, the Journal performed a related study on elite female endurance runners competing in the 2020 US Olympic marathon trials, finding a high correlation between endurance athletes who’ve self-reported eating disorders in the past and body weight dissatisfaction, as well as intentional caloric restriction.

Yet pressure from coaches, the media, societal standards, and other peers may be the most impactful contributor toward eating disorders in athletes. Coaches who have a high-conflict, low-support relationship with their athletes, for example, can influence the risk of disordered eating among athletes, shares the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Performance-centered motivational tactics by coaches can even play a role as well.

In addition, societal expectations can drive athletes to achieve certain body stereotypes based on their chosen sport (such as long-distance runners being thin), the NCAA points out. This, combined with the perception that eating disorder-related symptoms like dieting and excessive training are normal behaviors in sports culture, can make it easy for athletes with eating disorders to go unnoticed, never getting the help they need.

While athletes can face immense pressure from coaches and teammates to lose weight, some can face just as much pressure to gain weight as well, eventually leading to disordered eating. In the NFL, ESPN reports, athletes are told their worth is often measured in their weight, leading to increased body image and self-esteem issues, as well as all-consuming measures to keep up their 300-plus pound frames.

In a 2020 interview, former NFL tackle and Hall of Famer Joe Thomas shared with ESPN, “You’re training yourself to have an eating disorder the way you view food when you’re in the NFL, and to try and deprogram that is a real challenge.” But Joe Thomas isn’t the only example of eating disorder issues facing athletes in the highest levels of sport.

Famous Athletes With Eating Disorders: Spreading Awareness

As eating disorders become more prevalent in sports culture today, several famous athletes are opening up about their personal experiences in hopes of normalizing conversations about these issues to create change. In 2024, former Winter Olympic bronze medalist Gracie Gold released her memoir Outofshapeworthlessloser, describing her challenges with anorexia, binge eating, and depression amidst the high-pressure world of Olympic figure skating.

In her book, Gold tells how skaters at a young age are taught that their achievements are contingent upon how small they are, with coaches sometimes making weight a prerequisite for competing. Gold points out that figure skating is uniquely vulnerable to disordered eating due to judges’ subjectivity in competitions, and even goes as far as saying that skaters are encouraged to have a dysfunctional relationship with food during their elite careers. Her book has since become a New York Times bestseller.

Mexican pentathlete and two-time Olympian Tamara Vega released her 2023 documentary Athletes in Front of the Mirror to tell stories of Mexican female athletes suffering from eating disorders, including her own struggle with bulimia. Her film encourages people to love their bodies and has since received overwhelming feedback from others who can relate to these challenges.

Olympic and eight-time world champion Janja Garnbret also made waves with her 2023 viral Instagram post calling out eating disorders within the sport climbing community. Her outspoken actions have garnered widespread praise from fellow climbers.

Athletes and Eating Disorders: Recognizing the Warning Signs

Even elite professional athletes aren’t immune from the challenges of eating disorders. With that said, as an athlete you understand that your body doesn’t fit the typical norms. So how can you know when your eating habits (or a loved one’s) are truly unhealthy? Here are some eating disorder warning signs to look out for:

• Longer recovery time needed after workouts and competitions
• Preoccupation with food, weight, and body size
• Irregular menstrual cycles in female athletes
• Excessive exercising and overtraining to offset food consumption
• Ritualistic eating patterns
• Bingeing or purging food
• Abuse of diet pills or laxatives
• Nausea, constipation, and other gastrointestinal issues
• Irritability and extreme mood swings
• Rapid weight loss or gain

Struggling With an Eating Disorder? The Meadows Ranch Can Help

While both men and women who play sports can experience eating disorders, female athletes are often more susceptible. That’s why The Meadows Ranch exists. We’re here to provide women and young girls with compassionate treatment designed to help you overcome the underlying causes of your eating disorder. With our help, you can rediscover hope and ultimately reclaim your life through long-term healing. To learn more, contact our team today.