Body Shaming Dressed Up as a Fitness Goal Is Still Body Shaming

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela
@nataliapetrzela
“The demand has largely gone undercover…Women are told ofc the point is not to become incredibly thin but to get “fit.” In practice, they are 1+the same.”

This (almost purely) rhetorical shift is the story of 21stc fitness culture
👏🏽 ⁦@janecoaston⁩

Opinion | Body Shaming Dressed Up as a Fitness Goal Is Still Body Shaming
When women are urged to change their bodies to perform, is it really about aesthetics?
nytimes.com
3:54 AM · Nov 8, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/06/opinion/body-shaming-fitness.html

No paywall
https://archive.ph/atmtL

The University of Oregon is known for its track and field program. The women’s team has won two national titles since Robert Johnson took the helm of the program in 2012, and the university’s athletic programs enjoy significant financial support from Nike (whose co-founder Phil Knight is an alumnus). Hayward Field, the home of the Oregon Ducks’ track, hosted the Olympic Trials in 2021 and will be the location of the World Athletics Championships in 2022.

But in late October, the Oregon women’s track and field team made headlines for an entirely different reason: Six athletes had left the team citing fears that the program’s approach to their weight and body fat percentages put them at risk for eating disorders.

In women’s sports, discussions of weight is nothing new, and has led to life-threatening behavior. Just to name a few examples: In 1988, a judge at an international competition reportedly told the American gymnast Christy Henrich that she was too fat, and her coach, Al Fong, allegedly called her “Pillsbury Dough Boy.” (The Los Angeles Times reported that Fong denied these accusations.) Henrich, who competed for the United States at the World Championships in 1989 and was a rising star in the sport, developed anorexia and bulimia, and died at the age of 22 from complications related to her eating disorders. Other prominent athletes, like the Russian Olympic champion figure skater Yulia Lipnitskaya, who left skating in 2017, have retired from their sports due to disordered eating.

Today, in an era in which we are far more aware of the deadly impact of eating disorders, it’s more difficult to get away with using language as direct and cruel as Fong allegedly did. But that is not to say that the body shaming and unrelenting pressure on women athletes to attain unnaturally thin physiques have disappeared. Far from it.

*snip*

[Hekate]

1. KnR

[obamanut2012]

2. Mary Decker is a victim of this program

And how they approached the women runners. Decades ago, but it's roots are very deep.

Kara Goucher has also spoken out about this.

A Trail Runner article from five years ago dicusses this, too: https://www.trailrunnermag.com/nutrition/daily-nutrition-nutrition/lets-talk-disordered-eating

My point being it's no longer "PC" to tell elite women they are fat pigs and to become anorexic or hit the road, so the (usually male) coaches tell them to "get fit" via disordered eating.

[mathematic]

3. Competitive athletics is not "fitness" and conflating them is rhetorical garbage

Adults engage in competitive athletics TO WIN not to be fit or improve their health. This is a choice they make.

This choice often actually harms their long term health and the examples are numerous. Brain injury in football and boxing. Joint injury in basketball. Extensive PED use in all sports. Weight cutting in combat sports. Playing while injured. Maintaining unhealthy weight. It's all done TO WIN. It is not fitness or health.

The linked tweet directly calls out "fitness culture", which is aimed at regular people trying to be healthy but this topic is about competitive adult sports which targets highly motivated and talented people that are willing to sacrifice their health to prove they're the best at something. It should be obvious that these are two different things.

[Johnny2X2X]

4. Agree

This article doesn't really discuss fat shaming, it conflates fat shaming with a different issue IMO. That issue is people sacrificing their health for athletic competition. Oregon track and field is state of the art, what I suspect is that they started putting more value in their metrics over their individual athletes.

[pandr32]

5. Thank you for making this distinction

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. What is competitive athletics, but fitness to win?