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Anorexia Nervosa
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What is Anorexia Nervosa?
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How does Anorexia Nervosa develop?
Anorexia Nervosa is when a person restricts the amount of food they intake, severely limits what and how much food they eat, or completely avoids eating at all. One key component of anorexia is the need to maintain constant control over some form of food restriction.
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Anorexia often begins with a person dieting or exercising, these are healthy forms of weight loss however the situation drastically changes when a person isn’t getting any instantaneous visual gratification from the work they’re putting in. This is when people with anorexia cut things out of their diet or reduce their overall food intake, in most cases the reduction of food intake is still paired with exercising or over exercising. The brain of someone who has anorexia will justify this relationship as follows, a person whose exercising increases and their food intake decreases it can be assumed that their weight will also decrease.
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How is Anorexia Prevalent in Sports?
For athletes, especially ones in sports with weightclasses, the pressure and compuslive need to be 'skinny' can be overwhelmingly powerful. These pressures can be felt in all sports especially if there are coaches pushing the athletes to their limits and making them feel as though they need to be skinner. This dynamic can be deadly because as an athlete you want to trust your coach and believe they're just doing what is best for you, however the mortality rate for anorexia is the highest of all mental disorders. With 10% of all individuals dying in the first 10 years of them having anorexia.
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In weightclass sports, swimming, and long distance running, the likelyhood of developing anorexia is more likely due to the need to always maintain the same ideal bodytype. In wrestling before weigh-ins athletes will do "sweat-outs" where they work out in a bathroom with a hot water shower running in full sweats in order to sweat out any water weight they may have in their body.
However, just because these sports have the highest likelihood in theor athletes developing eating disorders, performance sports also have a high rate of anorexia development: gymnastics, cheerleading, and dance. Coaches in these sports can really push their athletes toward becoming skinnier and losing weight.
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Works Cited
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1. "Eating Disorders: About More Than Food." National Institute of Mental Health. Eating Disorders: About More Than Food - National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) (nih.gov) Accessed 21 April 2024.
2. Editorial team. "The Two Types of Anorexia and Their Characteristics." It’s Psychology. 16 December 2021. The Two Types of Anorexia and Their Characteristics (itspsychology.com) Accessed 21 April 2024.
3. "Anorexia Nervosa – Highest Mortality Rate of Any Mental Disorder: Why?" Eating Disorder Hope. Anorexia Death Rate – Highest Mortality Rate of Mental Disorder: Why? (eatingdisorderhope.com) Accessed 21 April 2024.
4. Bashforth, Emily."Eating disorders in athletes: how can we tackle them?" Patient. 20 March 2022. Eating disorders in athletes: how can we tackle them? (patient.info) Accessed 21 April 2024.
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