Media’s Portrayal of Body Aesthetics Put Swimmers at Risk

Great article. Even applied to junior high and high school athletes

K viejas tan bonitas ;yo también nado intencivo todo esto me gusta las felicitó adios

Eating disorder! Like is eating 10000 calories a day one?!

You can’t judge a book by its cover is very true in swimming I’ve found over the years. I’ve met many seemingly overweight swimmers who were incredibly fit and able to swim circles around others with so-called “swimmers’ bodies”. It’s not how you look – it’s how fast you can swim! No more body shaming I wish – whether you’re fat, skinny or in between!

I never thought I could be skinny enough when I swam. Looking back I was way to tiny. At 5’2″ I was only 95lbs to 110 at my biggest. Now that I don’t competitively swim it has taken a toll on almost all of my body. And I can’t get back to that weight. No matter how hard I try. That body image issue never leaves you.

Great article…even us masters swimmers struggle with this.

This is such a HUGE HUGE issue. It needs attention, care and a healthy forum. I’m EXHAUSTED with skinny girls with incredibly unhealthy eating habits who are non athletes having such a strong and powerful voice on beauty. It’s absurd. Don’t even get me started on the fashion industry as a whole. We can do so much better!

I think it needs to start with having a full training staff available. If you don’t have a nutritionist at the D1 level, you aren’t going to have them at D2 or D3. Kids don’t know how to eat right. Especially in college. And cafeteria food is disgusting. Most schools offer no nutritional information for the foods displayed. kids have no idea the number of calories they are taking in, or how many they should be taking in. Unless you are at an elite college, this information isn’t available. Nutrition should be a mainstay of swimming and diving. I have also mentioned this before, but a lot of times eating disorders are a control issue. Everything else in the student athletes life is in somebody else’s control, but food can’t be. You can’t force somebody to eat or not to eat. It can be deeper than looks. Something to consider. Is your swimmer emotionally ok? Are they struggling? Do they need somebody to talk to about life, not just swimming. The media does play a part, but so does inner confidence or lack there of. We need to build girls up from an early age, so when they get to college they have a strong sense of self, and can deal with life on life’s terms. If you look at Olympic swimmers, they are strong, solid, muscular. There are no string beans in the group. They body will start to burn muscle if there isn’t enough protein and carbohydrate to burn. Then you are damaging your chances of peak performance. You cannot perform without eating. The body will eat itself to get what it needs. Exhaustion physically will set in, then emotionally. I support open dialog in this area…from the beginning of the season to the end. Nice job Courtney! Great Article!

This is a fantastic article. I’m a male college swimmer and I find that this is a problem for me as well. Though I do agree that I may be a more prominent issue in the female athlete community that is not to say that men don’t experience the same pressures. Coaches have said to me when looking at another team “yeah see them? That’s what real athletes look like” and being a dedicated swimmer that sucks to hear and makes you rethink everything you’re doing. This is something that must be discussed more by all athletes at all levels and hopefully that can help get rid of the stigma behind eating disorders and turn the focus back to performance rather than body weight.

Thanks for the interesting piece. I have been involved in swimming from the age of 8 and am a coach now, training whenever possible. I come from an athletic family and so we all have an athletic frame, with me being a bit bigger than the other women in my family.
For as long as I can remember I have had the same response when people hear that I was a swimmer: “Yes, I can see from your shoulders.”
I’ve had men (from my teenage years) pass comments such as ”don’t mess with her…have you seen the size of her arms and legs?”
Similarly I’ve heard the same message from many a mom, dad, aunt: “We thought she should stop swimming because we didn’t want her to develop big shoulders.”
People would remark that I wear ‘girly’ shoes when they saw me in heels. Or they were surprised that I was ‘able to make the switch’ between Sporty Me and Girly or Feminine Me. What absolute bulldust.
It took me many, many years to accept that this is my body and I should embrace it.
So yes, I have broad shoulders (boys at school would measure and compare shoulders and biceps). And yes I am muscular and athletic.
But that’s a ‘price’ I am willing to pay and accept and embrace. For the athletic ability I have been blessed with. And, as if that’s not enough, the joys, the highs and the lows, the friendships and the rewards that came with the sport of swimming and the other codes I have managed to enjoy from a young age are priceless.
I have a healthy appetite and am not active still at 42.
So thanks for the article. We need to change the perception that an athletic body is not feminine (and here I want to cite examples like Serena Williams, Maria Mutola, Martina Navratilova, who come to mind). We need to recognise the TALENT that exists and acknowledge that first and foremost.
I recall those ‘glamorous’ images of female athletes from London 2012, perpetuating the idea that there are 2 sides to a woman involved in sport. What are we teaching our young women???
I was able to resist the shallow perceptions I came across over the last 30-odd years, but others may not…

Super important issue to shed light on in our sport. Way too many great female athletes have compromised their health and wellness because of these absurd standards.

Such a B.S. You want to be fat? Be my gest, but stop winig . All i can say is that this article is to make comftable all this fat asses and lazy women! And maby but not likely man! Looking the resolts from competitions in any sport I don’t see any elephants getting a !!!