I don't like fat gymnasts

[Bajanswife]

I have this issue with my DD and gym - I don't take her because I'm working, so she gets a ride from school to the gym with a team-mate and then I pick them up. Her ride always has junk snacks in the car, so there's no way my DD is going to eat anything healthy I may have packed for her - I gave up because I don't have that money to waste right now. I just try to feed her well at home, but I am losing control of what she eats outside of home, and I don't seem to be able to control what she eats before gym at all. It's a tough battle!

I also sympathize with parents of picky kids who do gym. It's fine to be patient at home and know that they'll eat when they're hungry and if there's only nutritious food on offer then that's what they'll have to eat. But when the timing is tight going from school to gym, you don't have the luxury of waiting until said child is starving and therefore forced to eat what's good for her but what she doesn't really want ..... that starvation may hit in the middle of gym. I guess you could say "no gym until you eat this XXXXX", but the coach would have to be on board with that because there would be plenty of missed or late gym classes for a strong-willed child!

 

[wallinbl]

I also sympathize with parents of picky kids who do gym. It's fine to be patient at home and know that they'll eat when they're hungry and if there's only nutritious food on offer then that's what they'll have to eat. But when the timing is tight going from school to gym, you don't have the luxury of waiting until said child is starving and therefore forced to eat what's good for her but what she doesn't really want ..... that starvation may hit in the middle of gym. I guess you could say "no gym until you eat this XXXXX", but the coach would have to be on board with that because there would be plenty of missed or late gym classes for a strong-willed child!

I've watched some of the optional girls come running into practice late with an armload of Funyuns, Skittles and Dr Pepper, and I'm just shaking my head thinking that may help her stomach stop growling, but she's almost better off eating nothing at all than eating that stuff before a 3.5 hour workout.

 

[BlairBob]

I wish coaches would stop handing out popsicles and candy. It's nice to give the kids a treat, but those things are packed with artificial coloring.

So you're saying it's the artificial coloring and not the 30-50g of kind of sugar in them? Dubious, I call.

Gymdog, hmm I see where you are coming from. Except that many child gymnasts do not realize that they are "athletes" not Joe-Blo kid. This is where I tend to come from. For the most part, I rarely deal with this with younger boys or boys in general. This may be due to the ratio of males to females in a gym.

However, with girls, I deal with this crap more often than I would not. We had to sort of do an intervention for one of the girls in the collegiate club. Something like trying to train on 500-700 calories a day. I get pre-teen and teen girls suffering from anemia or lack of energy way more rampant than I'd prefer (which to be honest is what 1 out of every 15-25 girls, maybe 1/50 or 1/100).

They know that if they bring us their candy, we'll trade them for some chocolate.

Whoa, I'm in.

 

[wallinbl]

So you're saying it's the artificial coloring and not the 30-50g of kind of sugar in them? Dubious, I call.

http://www.purefun.ca/content/Stevenson2007-ReportedInLancetJournal.pdf

Food dyes may make kids hyper, some scientists say, but sadly the price is right - The Washington Post

FDA weighs food dye, hyperactivity link - CNN.com

 

[kimskids]

I know my daughter personally gets an upset stomach from red dye. She figured it out all on her own that every time she would get a red slurpee from 7 11 she would get a very upset stomach!! It's only the red though so I'm guessing it's the dye....?????

 

[Empowered]

Okay not to get into a giant argument here because honestly this thread lost my interest days ago, but for the three links above:

One is an opinion piece. Thanks for your opinion m'am.

Another though it has a lot of fancy double talk in the middle pointing to studies here and there has a final conclusion that states "Specifically, relating to hyperactivity studies, our association strongly supports sound scientific approaches to understanding any effects of any type with food additives. What we see right now is no clear causal relationship with these studies and [feel that] there isn't enough information here for the FDA to establish a clear causal relationship."

This third study - editing here after having researched it more - was submitted to the FDA and essentially offset by mulitple other double blind studies that did not come to the same conclusions. Multiple studies have shown that only a "minority of children are vulnerable to the effects of artificial additives".

Again, not picking a fight, but it's a personal pet peeve when people throw up links to articles on the internet and expect that they are to be read as gospel.

If you don't want your kids to eat colored dye, don't let them eat it.

 

[wallinbl]

Okay not to get into a giant argument here because honestly this thread lost my interest days ago, but for the three links above:

They came up on the first page of Google results and I was being lazy because I was on a conference call. There are plenty of more reliable sources to suggest that artificial coloring is a problem.

 

[Empowered]

I am sure you could and I am sure I could refute you BUT it's so beyond off the topic of weight/gymnasts since all of these studies address the affect of the dyes in terms of hyperactivity/misbehavior... they don't address weight and obesity. It would be getting into an ideological debate on the type of children should eat and I don't think that is the point of this thread.

The point of this thread is... the original coach is an dumba** and we should never make our daughters or sons feel self conscious about weight! Woot, woot... and we're back on topic!

 

[Galadriel]

agree about not making them feel self conscious about weight
for team kids they may feel more pressure and puberty hits and messes things up!
friend of dd at high profile gym had weigh in weekly and girls who were above the agreed weight had to train in sweat suit and be singled out - she came to a meet with us when she changed clubs and couldn't believe the girls could pick their own food on a travel meet - previous club the coach ordered for the whole team!(salad,jacket potato and meat etc)

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[gymdog]

However, with girls, I deal with this crap more often than I would not. We had to sort of do an intervention for one of the girls in the collegiate club. Something like trying to train on 500-700 calories a day. I get pre-teen and teen girls suffering from anemia or lack of energy way more rampant than I'd prefer (which to be honest is what 1 out of every 15-25 girls, maybe 1/50 or 1/100).

Right, although at that point we've crossed the line into the instances where the child actually IS starving themselves due to a physical/psychological problem. It's not the same as being picky or even engaging in a power struggle over food the way a toddler might commonly do. The only response in my opinion is monitoring and professional help. Honestly I think in some instances monitoring and early detection with ongoing treatment through adolescence and early adulthood is all you can do. There is some perfect storm of personality factors and experiences that just makes certain things likely, and monitoring and treatment is important. No one should ever think that their child is immune because of x factor (we go to a "nice" gym, etc). Environment plays a role but in my experience personality is a dominant factor.

Any gymnastics is already a body conscious environment and that's a strike there already no matter how careful you are. I'm just being honest, especially since there seems to be this insane current thought that the incidence of eating disorders is "low" in gymnastics. I never felt I was in a gymnastics environment where weight loss was stressed, or where there was weighing, etc, and I still know girls who were hospitalized with eating disorders. Now the incidence of severe eating disorders must be fairly low, but just disordered eating to an extent that COULD be dangerous. I don't know what the official party line is right now, but my own experience and that has to be upwards of 80% of high level gymnasts. And I feel it's mostly a personality and control thing.

That said these kinds of comments don't help create a positive body image and they can trigger these kinds of behaviors (if not a full blown eating disorder). Also, disordered eating is going to be a given in an environment where there's weighing and weight goals, which is unhealthy and disturbing - it could lead to a great deal of health problems. My point is, though, even without blatant comments there are many subtle indicators that can drive these behaviors with personalities that are so inclined. To use my earlier points, food as a form of control within a family dynamic is not an uncommon way for disordered eating to start. Ultimately they WILL control how much they eat, unless you plan to resort to abusive tactics. So, forcing and consequences has a fair amount of room to backfire.

Again, I think the most straightforward way to deal with this in younger kids (before there is a problem) is that the parent provides a wide variety of different foods at regular meals and snack times, and the child decides how much to eat. This is not only the approach recommended by many nutrionists and pediatric therapists now, but it just makes sense in order to allow the child a healthy relationship with food where they don't feel the need to battle for control. They will learn that familiar things they will eat will be regularly available (and btw the renowned nutritionist I linked to recommends offering "less nutritious" foods regularly to avoid the concept of "forbidden" foods - barring intolerances or allergies, obviously) and they can choose to eat to their hunger level.

Extreme picky eating in young children is sometimes diagnosed as Eating Disorder NOS (not otherwise specified) and that is another story, often related to sensory issues and not through the fault of the parent's feeding. In this case you need different approaches and even therapy to address a feeding disorder. Some dislike of textures or strong flavors is to be expected from children in my opinion (also not the fault of the parents) and doesn't make sense to me to be extremely concerned if they'll eat some things from each group.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

spot on ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ and i won't get started with how females are portrayed in the media and fashion industry. insidious is what it is. sports is the least problem of the young female athlete.

 

[gymdog]

I agree, I want to make it clear that I don't think gymnastics in itself is the cause of eating disorders - I think it's a correlation with the personality factors that tend to be present in high level gymnasts. Gymnastics may actually be helpful to them as an outlet for these intense personality factors - I actually know many girls whose issues manifested after they STOPPED doing gymnastics - in fact I'd even say in my experience that is the most common. For myself this was true. It's something to be aware of.

If I thought gymnastics caused eating disorders I wouldn't coach gymnastics. But on the other hand I don't think we should be delusional and think these issues are rare in high level gymnasts. I just don't think that's the reality we're dealing with. The key is awareness, monitoring, detection, and ongoing treatment in adolescence when necessary. Early adolescence and the transition from adolescence to adulthood seem to be particularly key periods, especially when they coincide with quitting competitive gymnastics.

 

[gymgurl]

Okay from my experience but yet again this is only my experience but I have had 1 close friend who suffered from anorexia and another childhood friend that did also. One of my best friends now is battling bulimia and not a single one does gymnastics. However, they all have similar personality traits. The first was a perfectionist beyond belief. Everything had to be perfect, she was also very anxious and suffered from severe anxiety. The second i didn't really know that well but was pretty hard on herself at school from what i can remember, one of my best friends put so much pressure on herself to do well. So all very very self critical and judgemental. Thus I believe that it is more a personality trait that leads to eating disorders it just so happens that this personality trait is often present in gymnasts as well.

 

[MdGymMom01]

I totally agree that the media plays a big part in the negative body image and pressure put on young girls. I found this article the other day and it looks like maybe the media will start changing (at least the fashion model industry):

The Look - Study: Banning too-thin models could help curb anorexia