NEDA TOOLKIT for Coaches and Trainers
A runner’s story
Talking with Diane Israel, former triathlete and star of the documentary film Beauty Mark
Diane Israel was a highly successful triathlete for 15
years, the Colorado mountain running champion and a
world-class racer. She was also anorexic from about the
age of 12 until well into her twenties. She did not have
a period until she was 30, and as a result, her bones
weakened, leading to 17 stress fractures. Diane knew
what she was doing to her body. Yet the combination
of the teen’s belief that she was invincible and her fear
that the added weight of womanhood would put an
end to her running greatness made it easy to ignore
the warning signs of a serious eating disorder. The 2007
documentary film Beauty Mark told Diane’s story and
looked at the effects of popular culture on different
athletes’ self-images.
The truth for Diane and for many eating-disordered
athletes is that, “we don’t know how to handle being
and staying a great athlete as our body changes,” says
Diane, who is now a practicing psychotherapist in
Boulder, CO. Coaches, she believes, must be educated
so they can help the eating-disordered athlete “make
the transition into adulthood while remaining a great
athlete.” At the root of all eating disorders, Diane believes, is a
“lack of a sense of self,” what she calls the “self-esteem
piece.” She didn’t feel okay about who she was; finding
something she could control — how much she ate —
numbed her feelings of self-hate and made her feel
safer. It helped her make order out of what felt like a
chaotic life.
sibling relationship. Many coaches “have this belief
that if you’re thinner you’ll be better, in gymnastics,
swimming, running,” Diane says. “We have to teach
coaches that thinner doesn’t mean better.”
She counsels coaches to learn how to view the athlete
as a complete person, not just as an athlete who must
be groomed to perform. The coach needs to care about
the athlete’s family life, his or her emotional state,
and service to the planet, in other words, “to honor
the whole human being,” not just the athletic being,
according to Diane.
The coach also has to be able to voice concern over
worrying symptoms. “If somebody had come up to
me in the locker room and said, ‘I’m really worried
about you,’” says Diane, “I probably would have denied
[being anorexic] but I would have known that at least
someone cared about me. Nobody ever did that for
me.” She urges coaches and any loved ones to “speak
from your own immediate pain. Don’t focus on their
problem. Don’t say, ‘You look so sick or skinny.’ Say,
‘I’m worried about you. Fear comes up for me when I
think of you.’”
Another pointer: “A huge thing when you are sick is
that you feel crazy,” says Diane. The athlete needs to
hear from a coach, family member or friend, “There is
support, and you are not crazy.”
Diane urges coaches to learn more about eating
disorders so that they can avoid the mistakes her own
coaches made. She likens the tremendous influence
that a coach has over an athlete to a parent-child or
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