Seconded. As someone who's been dealing with an ED for the better part of 20 years, I've been side-eyeing a lot of Restencourt's social media behaviour around Gracie. Advertising her weight loss or concentrating on the numbers isn't a smart move. That's like Eating Disorder Recovery 101.
Being in competitive shape is obviously a necessity if one wants to participate in a sport at an elite level but putting stuff like that on social media is ill-advised at best and harmful to both Gracie and others dealing with EDs at worst. To be honest, his social media strategy reeks of exploitative opportunism. I remain unimpressed by him.
I had no idea you and I battled the same demon. I’m so sorry. <3
But, yeah, I agree with all of this. For some reason, I flashed back to Britney Spears’ comeback with “Womanizer” and how the video director told her they were going to have to deal with the body size noise no matter what, so they might as well take it head on. Which... feels somewhat applicable, in that Gracie’s performance at Rostelecom wasn’t especially encouraging. But why is she only doing her first off-ice
now? If she hadn’t been doing any off-ice training, why the heck was she entered for Rostelecom?
And why does he know her weight? And why would he post the number instead of talking about her stamina being noticeably improved (or something else more benign, though of course skating fans would immediately read into the weight aspect) and let the chips fall as they may?
Can anyone shed light on how eating disorders are treated (from a cultural standpoint) in France? I'm curious...glad for Gracie that she is doing better, but agree that this was worrying/seems like it could be triggering for someone with an eating disorder (or for someone/a fan with an eating disorder who views that kind of post). It will be interesting to see how this coaching relationship plays out...
Can’t speak to France specifically, but as a general rule, countries with socialized medicine produce some of the worst case studies but seem to do better in terms of actual recovery. The US has hundreds of inpatient facilities but your discharge date may well be determined when you arrive, if you can even get insurance to authorize you beyond 2-3 days of care before cutting you off. Beds are still scarce, but it’s largely due to high patient turnover, not a 2-3 month stay by the majority. By the time patients from Canada get approval to be treated in the US, they’re ... extremely sick. Similar story in Europe, and it can be quite a long time before someone is able to enter inpatient treatment. On the other hand, those countries tend to be much more enlightened regarding length of stay and have more robust social services and post-inpatient planning — everyone I knew who was in Europe had significant inpatient time (6 months fully inpatient, 6 months on weekend visits home, for example) and extensive post-care planning: weekly bloodwork, counseling of all kinds (to help return to the job market, general recovery work, etc.). Whereas in the US, you can find plenty of people with EDs who’ve had treatment approved numerous times but whose total length of time in inpatient across multiple facilities is two weeks.
I’ve heard of staff at ED treatment in the US mentioning that their sickest patients come from Canada, which is broadly backed up by anecdata. In my experience: my friends in socialized medicine systems became sicker than your modal US patient, but they had better long-term outcomes, permanent damage to the body being held equal.
hwell:
