Image courtesy of Jaci Berkopec on Flickr

A family friend of a Moji employee passed away this past week from anorexia at the age of sixty-four – a tragedy that happens far too often in women of all ages.

Female athletes are particularly prone to disordered eating as a result of the pressures of their sport, their peers, and the media.  Though sports requiring weigh-ins and aesthetic judging may come to mind, all competitive athletic activities can cause undue pressure in women to restrict their caloric intake.  Endurance sports, sports that require revealing uniforms, and sports that benefit from diminutive frames are just a few other categories that yield an unnaturally high number of athletes with eating disorders.  Unfortunately, that means that very few, if any, sports are a safe haven for women.

It is important to understand the risk factors and warning signs associated with eating disorders in female athletes and the unfortunate progression of the often serious, and sometimes deadly, conditions known as the Female Athlete Triad.

The Female Athlete Triad is three interrelated medical conditions born from aggressive athletic training in conjunction with disordered eating.  These conditions are:

-energy deficiency (disordered eating)

-amenorrhea (menstrual disturbances)

-osteoporosis (bone loss)

While the Female Athlete Triad refers to all three conditions, women will suffer from each of these conditions to varying degrees as the disorder progresses.  The most advanced cases will demonstrate significant weight loss, loss of menstrual cycle, and reduced bone density.  Female Athlete Triad sufferers experience a variety of symptoms from fatigue and amenorrhea to repeated stress fractures and organ failure.  The effects of this disorder may be felt for years as women struggle with both the mental and physical ramifications of the triad and some effects, such as the loss in bone density, cannot fully be repaired.

The onset of the Female Athlete Triad is often intentional as the pressures of appearance and/or performance cause women to try to drop weight.  However, some athletes simply are not aware of their caloric needs as they progress to more demanding training regimens and will unintentionally slide into energy deficiency.

The NCAA and other organizations have done much to educate the athletic community about the Female Athlete Triad.  However, little has been done to bring this information to the general public.

Recently, there has been very little attention brought to this disorder at all, which affects 1/3 of female athletes – something that Moji hopes to do.

It takes some digging to find articles and information on the subject, so in order to make sure the information gets passed along to as many women and their loved ones as possible, we did the heavy lifting for you.

Here are the best resources available on the Female Athlete Triad and disordered eating in athletes.  We urge female athletes, their coaches, trainers, doctors, friends, and family to learn more about this medical condition so that they may help restore these athletes to health.

RESEARCH AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Female Athletes: Health Problems Caused by Extreme Exercise and Dieting:  Information from the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.  Features information on how to best take advantage of a doctor’s examination.

The Female Athlete Triad:  Official pronouncement from the American College of Sports Medicine providing in-depth information on the Female Athlete Triad and a list of over 100 hundred citations for further information.

Disordered Eating and the Controlling Aspects of Aesthetic Sports:  An article from the Association for Applied Sport Psychology on the psychological contributions to disordered eating in athletes.  Good information on warning signs and risk factors.

HELP FOR COACHES AND FRIENDS

Managing the Female Athlete Triad:  A guide written by the NCAA  and distributed to 2,900 NCAA women’s coaches to help them identify and manage the Female Athlete Triad.

ORGANIZATIONS

Female Athlete Triad Coalition:  A non-profit organization formed to help prevent the Female Athlete Triad through advocacy, educational, and research.

FOR TEENS AND YOUNG ADULTS

Teens Health:  An article on kidshealth.org that breaks down the Female Athlete Triad, describes its signs and symptoms, how to help friends, and how to stay healthy yourself.

Sports and Menstrual Periods:  An article from the Center for Young Women’s Health that describes the Female Athlete Triad and gives in-depth tips for young women.

PERSONAL STORIES

When Being Varsity-Fit Masks an Eating Disorder:  A 2006 New York Times article that describes the Female Athlete Triad at its worst through the tragic story of Alex DeVinny and other athletes.

Women Face ‘Triad’ of Danger and Athletes’ Hunger to Win Fuels Eating Disorders:  A pair of articles from the USA today that talk about the Female Athlete Triad

SOME RESOURCES FOR MALE ATHLETES

Eating Disorders May Be Rising Among Male Athletes:  An article from Reuters Health that discusses the 2008 Current Sports Medicine Reports findings.

Eating Disorders in the Male Athlete:  Abstract to an article by Antonia Baum for Sports Medicine.

Second, we can learn about how we are not alone in our daily challenges, as even professional athletes experience what we might call “road blocks”.  These can range from actual physical road blocks to mental and emotional road blocks, i.e. the night before you first 20 mile training run or thinking about what the heck you are going to make with that huge head of cabbage you bought on sale last week.

These athletes make their modest income based upon the fact that they are the best in the world at what they do, even though they have the occasional outburst (see 0:22 on video).  They experience the same frustrations we do, albeit in different forms.  This video shows you how they take that frustration and turn it into success.

Keep working hard, and you too could “Be Like Mike”.

What many of these athletes won’t know is that this unparalleled look at New York is thanks in large part to Fred Lebow, the avid runner and Romanian immigrant that founded the New York City marathon in 1970.  In honor of the U.S. bicentennial, Lebow had the guts to take the 1976 marathon from Central Park to the streets of New York City.  The inaugural street-course ran through all five boroughs at a time when many of these neighborhoods were unimaginably dangerous.  When the starting gun went off that fall morning, skeptics swore that some might not come back alive.

Yet, 26.2 miles later, Lebow and his fellow runners had united a city and ignited the distance running craze.

Filmmaker Judd Ehrlich captured Fred Lebow’s incredible life, which is in large part the history of the New York City Marathon in Run for Your Life.  The movie, which premiered last year, depicts the determination of a slow but dedicated runner who fell in love with the sport and decided to share that passion with the world.

Good luck to all of those runners who will become a part of Fred Lebow’s legacy this Sunday.  May each of you find his inspiration and love of both the city and the sport on the streets of New York.

]]> http://www.gomoji.com/blog/moji-motivation-lebow/feed 0 http://www.gomoji.com/blog/moji-break-nyc-runner http://www.gomoji.com/blog/moji-break-nyc-runner#comments Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:00:39 +0000 HITCH http://www.gomoji.com/blog/?p=569 40 years, 100,000 applicants, 25,000 runners, 2 million spectators, and 26.2 miles of incredible city.  The New York City Marathon is boss.   In honor of the race this coming weekend here are the top 25 ways you know you train in NYC.

Read more on Moji Break: You Know You’re a NYC Runner If……

40 years, 100,000 applicants, 25,000 runners, 2 million spectators, and 26.2 miles of incredible city.  The New York City Marathon is boss.   In honor of the race this coming weekend here are the top 25 ways you know you train in NYC.

Photo courtesy of ajagendor25 on Flickr

You Know You’re a NYC Runner If…

1. You dodge tourists, hot dog carts, movie sets, and pigeons on every run
2. You calculate distance in terms of Central Park loops and city blocks
3. The number one reason you don’t like to run in the rain is that all the umbrella carts come out
4. You know that on any given run you might be hit by a cab driver, hipster messenger, or crazy restaurant delivery bike dude.
5. You’ve had your regular running route interrupted by The [Insert Affinity Group} Day Parade
6. You buy running shorts that have pockets big enough for your blackberry
7. You recognize more people on your running route than in your building
8.  Each week you run more miles than you drive in a year
9. You’ve been so tempted by the smell of honey-roasted nuts that it’s taken all your willpower to not stop
10. You’ve been so nauseated by the smell of honey-roasted nuts that you’ve almost hurled
11. You wince every time a Law and Order starts with an early morning jogger happening upon a body
12. You know that there is nothing better for recovery than a New York bagel with a shmear (of lowfat veggie cream cheese of course)
13. Repeats on Harlem Hill are both the key to your training and the bane of your existence
14. You know that 9+1 not only equals 10, but also equals automatic entry into next year’s marathon
15. You know better than to run clockwise around the Reservoir
16. You know that the Bronx is home to not only the House that Ruth Built, but also one of the top cross country courses in the country
17. You’ve planned a run to end at a Pinkberry or Tasti D-lite
18. You secretly think that with your current level of endurance, you could be a really good pedicab driver
19. When it comes to one particular breed of bird, you have both flipped and been flipped mid-run
20. You know that the best view of the Brooklyn Bridge is from the pedestrian walk
21. You know that the same New Yorker spirit that keeps you running through the toughest miles is the same spirit that kept the city going after the WTC fell.
22. You love the strange silence of a snowy morning run through Manhattan
23. It annoys you that lower Manhattan streets don’t follow the 20/10 street/avenue city blocks per mile rule.
24. You have a better bond with your doorman than most of your coworkers
25. You think that at least one thing on this list doesn’t apply to runners who are “real new yorkers”

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One of our readers promptly noted that the article reminded him of the opening scene of Casino Royale, in which Sebastien Foucan displays Parkour stylings that are simply beyond compare.

For those who have yet to learn of this growing craze, Parkour and Free Running are the art and sport of moving from point A to point B in the most efficient and stylistically impressive manner possible.  In this literally mad dash across urban landscapes, Parkour runners use walls, buildings, lampposts, ladders, and garbage cans to propel themselves to…well, we’re not exactly sure where they go.

After watching many a Parkour video, we realized that although we did include trail running and aqua jogging in the article, we apparently left some key running surfaces off the list.  For this, we offer our sincerest apologies.

As to not short our community on their education about running surfaces, for this week’s motivational video, we have included the video that inspired it all.  Watch carefully for a brief tutorial into chain link fence hopping, sand dumping passage, crane training, and concrete table vaulting techniques.