Female athletes at risk if they don't eat enough - by Heather Stauffer, LancasterOnline, HStauffer@lnpnews.com
You’ve heard of people who take up exercising to lose weight and then, their appetites stoked, erase their losses by overeating?
But among some female athletes, coaches are working to head off a different problem: Players jeopardizing their performance and their health by eating too little.
The problem is known as female athlete triad syndrome, and traditionally it has been diagnosed when an athlete has disordered eating, osteoporosis — weak and brittle bones — and absence of menstrual bleeding. But the symptoms coaches are more likely to see are weight loss, lack of energy, declining performance and increasing injuries.
“It basically comes from dedicated athletes who just want to take being the best to an extreme and lose focus on the balance between the nutrition that you need and the effort that you give,” said Dan Quigley, who has been an athletic trainer with Manheim Township School District for 27 years.
Jessica Hoenich, who has been an athletic trainer since 1999, agreed. She has worked with groups ranging from the USA field hockey team to U.S. Olympic women’s bobsledders to her current assignment at Cocalico High School.
“Sometimes health is the last thing they're thinking about,” she said. Some may simply be caught up in trying to achieve their next athletic goal; others are following bad advice. And still others may be influenced by the widespread unrealistic body image messaging in American popular culture.
Preventive measures . . .
