Your Perfect Weight

Although there are no official numbers, experts estimate the triad is prevalent among young female athletes because of the high rate of amenorrhea reported, and the number of young women who suffer from eating disorders (specific, life-threatening types of disordered eating). The National Eating Disorders Association reports that as many as ten million women fight a daily battle with anorexia or bulimia.

Sometimes an athlete with previous bouts of disordered eating will recover only to experience a relapse later in life. Kathleen Lawler, a thirty-seven-year-old attorney from New Orleans, was hospitalized for anorexia as a high school soccer player. She overcame the disorder and remained free of symptoms for fifteen years. But six months ago, Lawler slipped back into disordered eating. Now on a swim team, her coach pulled her aside and told her she needed to stop losing weight. “I didn’t have energy, my times were getting slower, yet it seemed out of my control.” Lawler is now in therapy and getting back on track.

Weight Watchers
While male athletes tend to be more concerned with their performance than their weight, “it’s different for women,” says Susan J. Hewlings, Ph.D., assistant professor of health sciences at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. “Women are constantly trying to maintain a step-above anorexic ‘ideal’ and make their bodies look a way that doesn’t necessarily work with how they should function.”

Body-image obsession is worse with females because of the pervasiveness of sports body stereotypes (runners are thin, gymnasts are small, etc.), as well as the onslaught of media imagery of pencil-thin models and actresses. For many the number on the scale is often the main measure of whether they’re achieving this ideal.

But weight is a poor gauge of body condition, according to Ashley Koff, R.D., of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and founder of The HealthXChange. “Two women at the same height and weight may look dramatically different. You have to look at the end goal: to be healthy,” says Koff. The scale can’t tell the difference between fat and muscle, nor can it reveal anything about performance. “The scale is often a point of control with some women, but it shouldn’t be a measure of fitness,” adds Hewlings.