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NEDA TOOLKIT for Coaches and Trainers How to approach an athlete on your team whose eating behaviors are disrupting the team • Arrange a meeting with the athlete and let her or him know your concern. Talk about behaviors and performance rather than the athlete’s weight and eating habits. Example: “I’ve noticed that you don’t have as much energy and your performances aren’t what they used to be. You are a valuable member of this team and I’m concerned.” Refer her/him to health services for an assessment. (For more on this topic, see “Sample conversation with an athlete you are concerned about” in this toolkit.) • Communicate directly with their health providers. Sometimes athletes will not be truthful about following through on appointments, in hopes that they can maintain both their eating disorder and a spot on the team. Follow up to make sure they are complying with your recommendations. • Treat the eating disorder as you would an injury on the team, for example a fractured rib or a torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), instead of viewing it as an emotional issue. Explain to the athlete that you cannot let her or him practice unless she/he is healthy. • Come up with clear boundaries about athletic participation and make being in good standing with team dietitians or doctors a prerequisite for practicing and competing with the team. (For more on broaching the subject of an eating disorder with an athlete, see “Tips on how to positively intervene” in this toolkit.) Captains and communication • If eating concerns are present on your team it can be helpful to create a team policy or a plan around it at the beginning of the year or season. Try to involve captains, who are often the first people with whom team members will report or discuss a concern. A team policy might look like this: Anyone concerned about a teammate should let the captain know about it. The captain will then either talk to the athlete or see if anyone close to her/him has done so. If the athlete of concern is approached and denies a problem or refuses to seek help, the captain can then approach the coach with her/his concern. The coach addresses the problem from there. There are many variations on this but if your plan is created in collaboration with the team at the beginning of the season and each team member agrees to it, it will be much more powerful when you need to enforce it. Notes on recovery For many athletes, recovering from an eating disorder is both difficult and scary, in part because the athlete’s weight, shape and physicality are often closely tied to his or her identity. The idea of having to give up control of training and weight can be terrifying. Recovery also involves addressing underlying feelings, fears and insecurities that the eating disorder served to distance them from. Eating-disordered athletes may find the recovery experience overwhelming at first. For all these reasons, it is important to be sympathetic, and to connect at-risk athletes to services and support systems that will help them recover. It is also important to keep them connected to their teammates. Very often their team is one of their primary support systems. Even if an athlete is not competing, it is a good idea to involve her or him in the day-to-day life of the team as much as possible. Page  | 41