NEDA TOOLKIT for Coaches and Trainers
Athletes’ stories
The stigma of male eating disorders: Disorders can happen in “non-high-risk” sports, too
Talking with Patrick Bergstrom, eating disorders advocate, speaker and writer, founder of I Chose to Live
As a star high school lacrosse player, Patrick Bergstrom
stood out, on and off the field. He was handsome
and excelled academically, socially and athletically.
Coaches told him he was too small to play college
lacrosse, but he was determined to prove them wrong.
He set numerous records in lacrosse and weightlifting,
played on the Maryland Senior All-State team and was
nominated for the award of Maryland Public School
Player of the Year.
“When I wasn’t training, I was the life of the party,”
Bergstrom recalls. I had a boyish charm and confidence
that could win over any girl. There wasn’t ever a time
where I wasn’t dating an eye-catching female. I loved
attention, popularity and stardom.”
All of that changed when he went off to college.
Bergstrom suffered a string of injuries, went through
five different coaches at two universities and drank to
excess to numb the pain of his fall from athletic grace.
In an effort to regain his high school magic, he began
to work out more and eat less. Yet because he was
still excelling in class and producing on the field, no
one seemed to notice the pain he was in. The death
of his coach and mentor in a freak accident during
his sophomore year accelerated Bergstrom’s fall and
triggered his eating disorder. His new coach didn’t
believe in his ability and kept Bergstrom on the bench
for most of his final season. “That was devastating to
me,” he recalls.
He continued abusing alcohol, living off energy drinks,
and began eating less than a meal a day, all while
juggling two girlfriends. His playing began to falter
and his life, he says, “kind of went chaotic from there.”
College, he adds, “is the ideal place for an athlete to
have an eating disorder.” Athletes find themselves on
their own for the first time. Many know little about
nutrition, and intensive training, partying and studying
can allow room for disordered eating or an eating
disorder to thrive.
Two years after graduating, a therapist diagnosed
alcohol abuse and depression, and Bergstrom began
seeing a counselor. He assumed he was fixed, yet the
true cause of his poor health — his eating disorder —
had not even been diagnosed yet. Bergstrom thought
marriage might set him straight. By then he was pale,
weak, and experiencing fainting spells.
A month before his wedding was to take place, he
found himself lying on the ground, crying out for
help. Two weeks later, after four years of suffering
from anorexia nervosa, he was finally given a proper
diagnosis. He entered an eating disorders treatment
center and his fiancée walked out of the relationship.
Bergstrom is an eating disorders activist, speaker
and writer, and heads an educational and advocacy
organization, I Chose to Live. He’s heard from hundreds
of men and boy athletes suffering from eating
disorders. Most of the time, he says, the stories are
similar to his own: perfectionist, popular, athletic,
and smart people whose identities and self-esteem
are completely tied up with their success as athletes.
Bergstrom is also proof that any athlete, not just those
in high-risk sports such as gymnastics or rowing, can
become eating disordered.
Bergstrom notes that in two important ways, however,
his own story is typical of male athletes with eating
disorders: First, “I wanted to be bigger, stronger, faster,”
says Bergstrom. The “ripped six-pack and a muscular
build” are the typical body ideal for the male athlete.
Second, his disorder was diagnosed very late, when
it had reached a crisis stage and hospitalization was
essential. The extreme stigma faced by males with
eating disorders makes them experts at covering up the
disease, and their denial of the problem extreme. My
biggest fear, he says, “was the reaction others would
have when they found out I had an eating disorder.”
Patrick Bergstrom’s Tips for Coaches
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• Coaches are athletes’ greatest teachers.
Coach to instill life lessons in your athletes that will
help them succeed off the field.
Teach athletes to accept failure, to learn from their
losses. Coach to win, but also teach athletes that sport
does not equal life; they need to cultivate other
sources of self-worth and satisfaction.
Encourage athletes to play hard, but without losing
sight of the fun of sport.
Remember that most athletes aren’t going to
continue their sport after high school or college; be
sensitive to the whole athlete, including academics
and non-athletic interests.
Teach athletes to know the difference between
“being the best you can be” and “being the best.”
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