Hey All,
I want to take a break from the typical article topic you’ve come to expect from Fierce Gear OCR to address a piece of news in the obstacle course race world I feel has a huge impact on the community.
For those of you who have not heard, on Monday of this week elite athlete Amelia Boone posted publicly for the first time to reveal her lifelong struggle with an eating disorder. I was incredibly saddened to hear this news because it hits home for me, and so many others in the OCR community.
The first thing I thought when I heard this news, and the first thing I’d like to acknowledge now, is the courage and bravery it takes to be real about this. In the age of social media where we all seem to strive for “authenticity” (but instead post what I refer to as “curated authenticity” and what Amelia terms “selective vulnerability”), this is an example of TRULY putting yourself out there.
There is no delicate way to say it: anorexia is an ugly disease. It robs you of your dignity, and your sanity, and your ability to be the person you want and to just BE. What’s more is that this is a two-faced disease: women (and men) who suffer from anorexia are often actually praised and admired for their appearance due to its surface conformity with our cultural standards of “health,” “beauty,” and “fitness”…they’re being praised and admired for a disease which is actually destroying them. Killing them. Ripping them apart from the inside out. Then this praise and acceptance only serves to reify the disease…making it even more insidious and reinforcing its roots that take hold of our sense of self.
It is the most socially accepted form of mental illness in our society DESPITE the fact that it is the most lethal: it has the highest mortality rate of ANY mental illness, and the lowest recovery rate. According to a study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, between 5-10% of anorexics will die within 10 years after contracting the disease, and 18-20% will be dead after 20 years if they do not seek treatment. While it is a relief to know that mortality rates are substantially lower for those who do seek treatment (the risk drops to 2-3%), most will struggle with body image or the threat of relapses throughout their lifetime.
What's perhaps the saddest part of this whole debacle, is that there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON FOR THIS TO EXIST. While it’s true that not all anorexics deprive themselves in pursuit of a certain body type, the majority are aspiring to a cultural ideal of aesthetics that is in many ways 100% arbitrary: just check out the video below, posted by BuzzFeed, showcasing the vastly different ideals of women’s body types in different societies over the last 3,000 years.
I have heard the phrase “strong is the new skinny” and seen it posted all around social media, meant to be a positive message that we have rewritten the script and what’s “trendy” for women now is to be a #strongwoman, rather than the waifs in fashion magazines or the underwear models strutting down the runway. But I have always felt a vague sense of concern that there is a darker side to this catchy phrase and it bears mentioning here: is “strong the new skinny” as in, we are finally placing a greater emphasis on strength and fitness, or is “strong the new skinny” because one unrealistic cultural ideal of what looks “good” has been replaced by another? In today’s fitness culture, and especially in the OCR world, our social newsfeeds are flooded with posts by women enthusiastically sporting their latest bruises from a race, or a #MedalMonday pose with the medal they earned over the weekend, or “complaining” (via humble brag) about their most recent WOD which was “such a killer.” But what happens when this fun sense of shared community via our #fitlife, which constantly encourages us to “level up” in an effort to keep up with the Joneses, (or in this case, the medal addicts), develops a sharp edge?
To race at a truly competitive level in obstacle course racing demands incredible discipline and grit: it’s a sport that requires you to have speed but also endurance, strength but also agility, and to be versatile: just as comfortable swinging through the air gripping slippery monkey bars as trudging through knee deep mud or crawling under barbed wire. On top of that, being a high-performing female athlete in this largely male-dominated arena requires another level of dedication: attracting personalities that can laser-focus on a goal, for however long it takes to achieve it, all while eschewing social norms (or seeming to, anyway). In some ways, it’s the perfect storm for an eating disorder candidate.
Athletes – female athletes in particular – have several risk factors that could lead to the development of eating disorders. A NEDA study of Division 1 NCAA athletes concluded that over one-third of female athletes showed attitudes or symptoms placing them at risk for developing anorexia. Risk factors listed that are particularly prevalent in OCR include:
A UC San Diego study found that multiple traits that can help people excel in many areas of their life such as academia or sports can also be crucial contributing factors to the development and prosper of an eating disorder.
A few years ago I posted publicly about my own struggles with an eating disordered past and I have been open about it since then, mentioning it every once in awhile like in a blog article here about "Why We Race" (using my own story as an example), and sprinkling it throughout my Instagram posts (examples here and here) in an effort to spread body positivity, and to show that it's okay to be raw and real and really put yourself out there about your past, and to let others out there that they are not alone in their struggle. With each post I put up the thing that has continued to surprise me each time is how many people have reached out to me. They have thanked me for being so open about my story and said it made them feel empowered to do the same, and that they were grateful to hear that they were not alone in their struggle. The whole “don’t judge a book by its cover” or “you can never know someone’s journey just by looking at them” thing is true…and nowhere is it more relevant than here. If you take nothing else away from this article, or if you’ve been rolling your eyes the whole time at everything up until now, please at least walk away with this: You can not…I repeat…YOU. CAN. NOT. know someone’s level of health or fitness just by looking at them. “Healthy” and “fit” look different on different people based on what our individual bodies need, and what we want them to be able to do/how we want them to perform, and the level at which we expect them to compete. It’s a delicate balance that we need to respect, regardless of what we think we “should” look like by some arbitrary societal standard. Even Amelia mentions this in her article when she writes a section called “eating disorders come in all sizes, and health comes in all sizes.”
...We are doing this to ourselves. We accept it as a culture by turning a blind eye, and we reinforce it every time we compare our body to another and let the negative thoughts take hold. We have the power to rewrite the script and place the emphasis on TRUE health – in whatever form that looks like.
Keep this in mind the next time you look at another athlete and automatically think, “How is he so much more cut than I am?” or, “She looks so amazing…my training and nutrition are right on track so why can’t I look like that?” Challenge yourself to love yourself enough to quiet those thoughts or redirect them, and remind yourself that, as Amelia discovered, “just managing” is not enough.
I have said before and I will say again: I do not share my story because I think I am particularly unique or interesting. I’m not looking for sympathy, or empathy, or any other kind of “pathy.” Much to the contrary: I speak out about it precisely because I am not unique. It seems Amelia would agree with me, as she also said “…the last thing I’ve ever wanted was sympathy, or to proclaim that I’m somehow different. I’m not different: my story is ALL too common.”
Change does not happen overnight: it doesn’t happen with a single person, or a single voice, or a single blog post. But we have the opportunity and the power to change what goes on today – what we idolize and what we talk about (and what we don’t talk about) – to set the foundation for a better tomorrow for the next generation of athletes.
So, what part does Amelia Boone play in all this? Some people who read her statements or learn this news will feel tempted to feel disappointed, or upset, or even betrayed by her. They will say that this athlete: widely regarded to be the pinnacle of female achievement in the sport of obstacle course racing, who is a role model for many aspiring athletes (women and young girls alike) was, in a sense, deceiving us all along. While we looked up to her and lauded her for her athletic accomplishments, and marveled at the unstoppable combination of power lawyer and super athlete, the woman who we believed had it all together…really didn’t. Some might accuse her of being “weak” for letting a silly societal ideal of beauty “control her,” or criticize her for not facing her demons more aggressively by seeking treatment sooner. But I would disagree with those people…bigtime. They are the bullies of the world, or simply misinformed about how eating disorders work. The more light we shed on this issue, and the less we allow it to continue to hide in the shadows, the greater will be the outrage at what it truly is and the farther we will ALL be on the road to recovery.
To Amelia directly I would say: Good luck, and thank you. You are a warrior on the race course and a real force to be reckoned with...I have no doubt that you will bring the same ferocity to your treatment and find the peace, the passion, and the joy you are searching for. I know that you know that recovery always has its ups and downs...and sometimes it can feel like an overwhelming emotional roller coaster and all we want to do is get off and revert to what's comfortable and familiar. But recovery: just like training...just like racing...just like life, is a journey. And ya just gotta get up and keep going every day no matter what "obstacles" come your way (see what I did there? 😉).
My dad always taught me to "Run through the finish line" and in some ways that has never been more relevant than right now: because just like on Race Day, you never know how it's all gonna turn out until you leap over that fire jump at the end.
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
I will end my thoughts here, although I know the conversation is only just beginning. Being a “strong woman” and a role model doesn’t mean never making mistakes. Being an “inspiration” doesn’t mean being perfect. I saw a quote recently that said:
LIVE FIERCE.
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