Eating Disorders in Sport

Eating Disorders in Sport

Introduction

As Sundgot-Borgen (1999) proposes, within the extensive literature concerning eating disorders in sport three contentions are rarely disputed. Firstly, the prevalence of eating disorders is higher among athletes than non-athletes. Secondly, it is predominantly female athletes who experience these disorders. Lastly, sports which emphasise leanness or are categorised by weight will have a higher incidence than those that do not. These core assumptions have varying degrees of legitimacy which will now be briefly explored .

At the outset, the term “eating disorder” needs clarification. Strictly speaking the term refers to “the clinically diagnosable syndromes of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa” (Wilson & Eldredge, 1992, 115). Although a third category commonly known as “eating disorder not otherwise specified” exists, because the criteria for this category are that someone meets some but not all of the criteria for either anorexia or bulimia, there are arguably only two categories and thereafter different degrees of variation. Other conditions have also been identified, for instance Dosil and Garces de Los Fayos (2007, 77) describe “orthorexia” as being “characterized by a pathological obsession with consuming healthy foods” and also highlight a condition, predominately affecting male performers, where muscular physiques are obsessively strived after, called bigorexia/muscle dysmorphia/reverse anorexia . Pope et al. (2000) term this “The Adonis Complex” and contend that men are increasingly preoccupied with enlarging musculature, exemplified and exacerbated in contemporary times by the use of anabolic steroids. Although these conditions are recognised, they are not clinically diagnosed as eating disorders. This means that the three main contentions identified by Sundgot-Borgen (1999) can be reduced to acknowledging that athletes, especially females and/or those who compete in sports where leanness/weight is emphasised, are more susceptible to conditions characterised by perfectionism, selfstarvation, excessive exercising, obsessions with thinness, over-compliance, denial of discomfort, eating binges and purges.

Thompson and Sherman (1999) argue that this is hardly revelatory, further contending that these characteristics are not simply found in athletes but are in part actually responsible for successful performance. Wilmore (1992a; 1992b) reasons that few athletes or coaches escape the fixation on weight prevalent in sport. Thus, body weights which are associated with elite performance become goals for aspiring athletes. This becomes problematic in a clinical sense when weights below what is considered 'healthy' are strongly recommended with the “implicit message that sport performance is more important than the athlete's health” (Thompson & Sherman, 1993, 36).

Literature Review

A focus on clinically diagnosable eating disorders may suggest that a simple dichotomy exists between those who deviate from normative patterns of eating and those who do not. It is of course much more subjective than this. Andersen (1992, 178) describes how “in the midst of training for a sports event, it might not be clear who has an eating disorder and who is simply a committed athlete”. The lines between pathology and the actions of an aspiring performer are thus blurred and, as such, a focus only on athletes with eating disorders misses much in terms of ...