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NEDA TOOLKIT for Coaches and Trainers Hidden in plain sight: A champion rower’s quest for perfection and a sense of belonging leads to bulimia Talking with Whitney Post, Life Alive Coaching From the outside, my life looked like an athletic success story. I was captain of my open-weight college rowing team, which placed third at the NCAA Division I national championships. As a lightweight athlete I became a four-time US Rowing national team member, a four-time national champion, a world champion, and an alternate for the 2000 Olympic team. During this entire time, I struggled with an eating disorder. As a girl and young woman, I struggled to feel that I fit in. At a young age I began wishing my body was smaller, more “acceptable.” Around the time I went to college my mother developed breast cancer and underwent multiple surgeries, my parents got divorced, and my father disappeared. I arrived at college hungry; hungry to belong, to be noticed. I found what I was looking for in rowing, and, along with it, a workout regimen to aid me in my desperate pursuit of thinness. I fell in love with the sport. I excelled at it and my ability to perform earned me a place in a community of which I desperately wanted to be a part. I dated a star of the men’s rowing team; I had the loudest laugh; and I got good grades. I did it all with an eating disorder. Despite the thrill of rowing, deep down I felt lost, unseen, angry and depressed. I found solace on the water and in the dining hall. Each day was about surviving until dinner. I knew nothing about nutrition. I thought protein made you fat and that lunch was for people who had a lot of time on their hands. I exhausted myself each day at practice and looked forward to rewarding myself with a warm, soothing and filling dinner. The beliefs that organized my world were played out through my body: thinness is rewarded by society; food relaxes and soothes me; the more I work out, the more I can eat; the more I work out, the better I am at my sport. The problem with this formula was that the more I worked out, the more food I needed to restore energy and numb the pain. The result: bulimia. I was never confronted by anyone on my team about my disorder, but I worried constantly that my secret would be discovered. I was deeply ashamed of it. My coach did comment occasionally that I didn’t look well, or noticed when my strength waned as I lost weight for lightweight competitions, and he would appropriately call me out on it. It meant a lot to me that he noticed, and his comments would scare me into eating disorder- free periods. As soon as it began, I sought therapy for my eating disorder at the school counseling center. Because my therapist didn’t specialize in eating disorders and knew nothing about athletes’ struggles with them, however, the sessions did little to stop the disorder. Most people, including me, thought my overtraining was the normal behavior of a driven athlete. My college and post-college rowing years on the national team remain murky memories. When I should have been enjoying the athletic results of my hard work and the adventures and opportunities it afforded me, I was too distracted by my disorder and my underlying unhappiness. In retrospect, what would have helped me is access to resources—information, referrals and support—and permission to use those resources. An acknowledgement that, “Hey, this is something you may be struggling with and here is where you can get some help for it,” would have gone a long way toward helping me get better. It is terrifying to seek help within the culture of one’s sport because there is so much shame and judgment associated with eating-disordered behaviors. My deep fear was of not belonging or being valuable to the team. Bringing resources to the team increases the chance that a struggling athlete will get help. Another important piece, especially for weight- restricted sports, is to talk about the weight-making process. Educate your athletes and provide resources outlining the best ways to make weight. Alert them to the physiological consequences of doing it the wrong way. Some weight-making processes adhere to secretive practices unofficially passed on among athletes and coaches. Everyone wants to make it look easy, so they downplay the extremes they put their bodies through. I know I would have performed significantly better as an athlete and made different life choices after my competitive rowing career was over had I not been trapped in the physical, mental and emotional quagmire of an eating disorder. For coaches, athletes and teammates, eating disorders are messy, complicated and confusing; it is easier to avoid addressing the problem. The disorder will not go away by itself, though, and most people are not equipped to tackle these issues alone. As a coach, the best thing for you to do is to take action: start asking questions, find professionals who can help, and show that you care. Page  | 46