Content warning: eating disorders, body dysmorphia
When I think of the years I spent competing in mountain biking, I think of the team camaraderie, the post-race feeling of satisfaction and the endless afternoons I spent on the trails – but I also think about the eating disorder that I developed.
I was 14-years-old when I joined my city’s composite high school mountain bike team. I was fortunate to have been raised by outdoor-loving parents in a place with a plethora of trails right outside my backdoor, so joining the team made sense for me.
Around halfway through my first season, I started placing well in both local and high school races. The intensity and adrenaline of the sport propelled me to fall in love with it quickly.
I wanted to be faster. I wanted to keep winning. I wanted to be the best I could be.
But being a girl in the sport felt isolating. I was one of only a few girls on the team, and I didn’t know any women in my area who raced and trained seriously. It didn’t take long for me to seek the advice and motivation I needed through the internet, specifically on social media.
I remember obsessively scrolling through Instagram accounts of professional female cyclists and trying to figure out what exactly made them so much better than the rest of their field. Was it their training regimens? Their sponsorships? Coaches?
The overwhelming standout to me was that all of these women were impossibly thin. And beyond that, the world seemed to praise them for their physiques – only they weren’t labeled as skinny. They were labeled as strong.
In my quest for self improvement, I decided to change what I ate. What started out as eliminating processed foods spiraled into a much darker fixation that I believed was healthy. And without knowing, I developed an eating disorder that changed my relationship with nutrition for the rest of my life.
I lost a lot of things when I developed an eating disorder. I lost muscle that I worked hard to build, relationships with friends due to my absence of energy and a chapter of my teenage years that could have been filled with mindless fun. But the worst thing I lost was my love for the sport.
For so long, I looked for women in the outdoor industry who looked like me – women who didn’t have a six pack, women who had fat on their sides, women without thigh gaps. Instead, I found myself trapped in a cycle of trying to minimize myself to look like them. I believed a false narrative that smaller meant faster, and that the less I weighed, the better I’d perform.
Studies find that disordered eating impacts up to 62% of female athletes compared to 33% of male athletes. And with a growing number of young adults engaging with digital media, body image issues among girls are getting progressively worse.
In recent years, more professional female athletes have admitted to struggling with eating disorders and body dysmorphia. In an age where social media has such a huge influence on young adults, this transparency is extremely needed.
From professional runners to outdoor advocates, it has become more and more apparent that the majority of women in outdoor athletics have experienced some feeling of inadequacy when it comes to their body.
Caroline Gleich, a ski mountaineer and environmental advocate, spoke up about body image in an Instagram post showcasing photos of herself that she refrained from previously posting after deeming them “less flattering.” In the caption, she writes:
“My body composition is perfect for what it’s meant to do: climb up mountains, stay warm in the cold and ski/run with power and purpose. My insulation allows me to thrive in cold temps. My body is sturdy.”
She follows this by describing how our world’s fixation with thinness is often dangerous, and she aims to advocate for people to view food as fuel. Her conclusion to the post emphasizes the importance of being authentic on social media and posting unfiltered photos that normalize the imperfection of appearance.
Kate Courtney, a professional cross country mountain bike racer and longtime idol of mine, was asked in an interview about her advice for young girls struggling with eating disorders.
“I don’t train to be skinny. I train to be awesome at biking. And I train to be fast, and I train to be strong and I train to be a badass,” Courtney said.
Courtney’s positivity around fueling and training is refreshing to read, especially considering the demographic of her followers on social media, with many of them being young girls who mountain bike.
Sports characterized by lean muscle mass and minimal body fat can pose their own problems of insecurity to impressionable athletes. Particularly in the running community, there seems to be a consensus that the less you weigh, the faster you can run.
Allie Ostrander, a former NCAA Division 1 steeplechase champion, has spoken up about her own struggles with restrictive eating and her eventual hospitalization due to malnourishment. She created a YouTube channel detailing the complications that her eating disorder created, and uses her platform to document her road to recovery.
In an age so characterized by social media and internet presence, I believe that it is becoming increasingly more important to encourage girls to look beyond what they consume online. And while social media can be harmful, it also has the potential to reverse the narrative that it has created if female athletes are brave enough to speak up.
To learn more about eating disorders or to find support, you can visit National Eating Disorders Association.
Lexi Lynn can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].