By Abby Farrell
When athletes chronically feel dissatisfied with their body, view body size and shape changes as unnatural and reflective of their commitment to success or think there is only one body size or shape that leads to desired outcomes, it can negatively impact their ability to nurture a lifelong and healthy relationship with their body.
To encourage an open conversation about body empowerment, we spoke to U.S. Figure Skating’s head of sports psychology, Caroline Silby, Ph.D., CMPC and U.S. Figure Skating registered dietitians Carrie Aprik, MS, CSSD, ISAK 2 and Adena Neglia, MS RDN, CDN about how coaches and parents can best support their athletes foster a healthy relationship with their bodies.
What is body image?
Silby: Body image is about the relationship a person has with their body. It's a lifelong relationship that will change over time, and you only get this one body to hold your spirit, strength and talents. Yet research does show that people in general can be dissatisfied with their bodies.
How can we work together to remove the stigma surrounding body image within figure skating?
Silby: If we want athletes to have a sport experience that helps them develop into healthy, empowered people who have healthy relationships with their bodies while also having performance outcomes that match their capabilities, we need to really maximize the overlap where healthy person meets sustained performance. That overlap of a healthy, empowered person and athletic performance is where all the magic of sport happens. The balance point between those two things is where athletes learn to figure themselves out both as people and as performers.
What are some things to avoid when talking to athletes about nutrition or their bodies?
Neglia: It is important to remember that young athletes are very influential and look up to the adults in their life. When discussing nutrition and bodies, it is important to be mindful of one’s words and actions (whether about the athlete or themselves). Even if something feels like a compliment such as ‘you look slimmer’ or ‘you look like you lost weight,’ a young athlete might think they must’ve not looked good before. If an athlete is already engaging in disordered eating or excessive exercise, comments like this can fuel and encourage these harmful behaviors. It is just as important for someone to be mindful about how they speak about themselves – talking about their diets or what they think about their own bodies in front of young athletes sends the message that it’s okay or normal to restrict food and that certain bodies aren’t “good”. This is problematic not only for athletes, but for all children and adolescents as it pertains to their relationship with food and their body.
Silby: Messages to avoid on the social-emotional side are that an athlete’s worth to others is conditional on how they appear and that changes in body size and shape are not natural. It’s an untruth that body size and shape is somehow reflective of an athlete’s commitment to their success or to their sport and that there's only one specific body size or shape that leads to desired outcomes. These are messages athletes hear quite often and are internalized by athletes, which is called self-objectification. We want to avoid these messages as they can be problematic for the healthy development of the person’s body relationship. There are 40 factors that impact performance, and, if you solely focus on body size and shape, then you are mitigating 39 other factors that are going to impact the quality of the sport experience as well as an athlete’s ability to launch their dreams and ambitions in a safe and empowering way.
What advice would you give to coaches or parents who may have an athlete struggling with their body image?
Aprik: The modeling piece is really important. Both how coaches and parents talk about and feed their own bodies is really influential on how kids and athletes view and feed themselves. It’s best to talk about bodies in terms of their function versus their form especially when an athlete may be struggling with their body image. Additionally, it's so important for parents and coaches to understand growth and development and normalize the changes that can and should happen during that time, especially in female bodies. Understanding, anticipating and validating those changes from trusted people in the athlete’s life is powerful. The growth and development period is also a time of heightened injury risk, and the point where kids are growing the fastest is when they're at most risk for injury. This is also the period of time that kids have the potential to lay down the most amount of healthy bone tissue that stays with them for a lifetime. If this period of time coincides with restricting food intake to cope with or prevent body changes, they may not maximize their bone density potential. Couple that with high intensity training, and we are setting up a lifetime of injury risk. By encouraging inclusion, adequacy and variety with eating, focusing on body function and performance over looks and referring athletes to appropriate nutrition and mental health providers when needed, parents and coaches can help protect their athletes.
SkateSafe Reminder
As a reminder, it is against SkateSafe policy to withhold, recommend against or deny adequate hydration, nutrition, medical attention or sleep. It is also against SkateSafe policy to prescribe dieting to athletes or other weight-control shaming. Mandatory reporters must report any instances of weight-shaming or any knowledge of athletes who are denying themselves adequate hydration or nutrition. Reports can be made to skatesafe@usfigureskating.org or by calling 719-635-5200, option 6.