OLIVER: Women athletes face unfair expectation to have 'ideal' body type
Column: Curiosity Corner
Take a second to imagine the body of a distance runner in your mind. What does it look like?
Perhaps you see a person that is not very tall, has strong legs and is generally wiry and skinny. Chances are the key to the picture in your head is thinness.
In present-day Western culture, functionality too often falls victim to the idea of having an ideal body type in athletics, which is felt the most by people who identify or present as women. Throughout my time in high school as a competitive distance runner, I have encountered an excessive amount of women who have had comments made about their appearance by those who have never spent countless hours preparing for races, running hill workouts or testing their limits on a track.
These comments usually revolve around the fact that they do not "look like" a distance runner.
It is all too easy to internalize the idea that you cannot be a "real runner" if you do not meet some artificial standard of slimness. This external barometer is entirely unrelated to your skill or your effort. This stands true even if you have never been told this outright.
And in order to fit into this meaningless perfect body, women are urged to become nutrition-obsessed, which could result in harming their hormonal balance and even stopping their periods. In the field of competitive running, eating disorders are a severe problem that affects runners at all levels of competition.
Up to 45 percent of female athletes suffer from disordered eating. If left untreated, these disorders can result in serious problems with both physical and mental health, and they can even be fatal, according to the National Institutes of Health.
In her interview with ESPN, marathon Olympic medalist Molly Seidel details her battle with eating disorders brought about by her struggles with body image and imposter syndrome.
"They knew I thought I had to be super lean and super fit all the time, never even allowing myself to eat a bowl of mac and cheese or go out to eat with friends without worrying about what I would order," Seidel said.
As they approach high school and college, many female athletes are taught to fear puberty and the changes it brings to their bodies. In actuality, puberty makes women quicker, more powerful and more adaptable. Women runners' performances do not peak until far beyond their college years, despite college athletics being generally considered optimal for the male physique.
Nevertheless, there are countless programs and coaches across the U.S. that teach female athletes to fight against the completely natural changes in their bodies and distrust the cues of hunger that they experience. In 2020, 36 Wesleyan University track and cross-country alum came forward about the toxic culture that enabled eating disorders and mental health issues.
Head coach John Crooke conducted "fat talks" with runners, advising them to shed weight in order to run more quickly. He instructed them to keep meal diaries and evaluate their records with him, according to what they stated in interviews. The athletes were ordered not to speak with other runners about those encounters.
The implications of this problem extend far beyond the scope of distance runners and female athletes. It presents concerns about how we as a society evaluate women's bodies and how we prioritize a standard of perfection over all else.
Due to the omnipresent and conditioning mindset of diet culture and disordered eating, hundreds of athletes have come to believe that maintaining thinness over long-term health and well-being is a sacrifice worth making.
It is crucial that we hold both ourselves and others responsible for dispelling myths about how skill is directly correlated with physical size. In spite of the challenges, we must oppose the structures that benefit most significantly from making us loathe the way we appear.
It is our duty to foster a culture where athletes have the freedom to excel in sports without restrictions based on their physical appearance. Instead of emphasizing our bodies' aesthetics, we should celebrate their strength, capability and tenacity.
Jamie Oliver is a first-year in the School of Arts and Sciences majoring in English and linguistics. Her column, "Curiosity Corner," runs on alternate Tuesdays.
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