Running for many acts as a form of pleasure, a way to lose weight or as a great source of strength and empowerment. The sport of running can take many forms from a sprint to an ultra marathon. While participating in the sport, as a regular physical activity generates numerous health benefits, there are concerns about how running can make an individual, especially younger females more susceptible to developing an eating disorder. When you think of a “female distance runner”, what image comes to mind? Thin, emaciated and lean. Long distance running is often associated with a stigma that a lower body weight is to be of a competitive advantage, especially regarding women. The source of this pressure on female athletes is widespread, coming from the sociocultural demands placed on all women to achieve and maintain an ideal body shape, being pressured to improve performance, which in turn is associated with a lower BMI (Body Mass Index) and conform to the specific aesthetic requirement and the media portrayal of elite athletes that promotes stereotypically lean, toned and attractive bodies. For some female athletes, the pressure to …show more content…
Subclinical anorexia is extremely prevalent with long-distance runners because of the common psychological traits associated with clinical eating disorders and elite sports such as high achievement orientation, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and perfectionism. Also, because these traits are not a means of concern for a runner because these traits are generally accepted and essential for competing successfully in the sport. That means that someone can be simply appeared to be committed to their sports, can actually be exhibiting signs of something more sinister. Runners can hide weight loss and compulsive exercise and because differentiating athletic leanness from a low