Rgirl said:
...I don't want to get into a discussion/argument about how not all thin people have eating disorders, which is certainly true, but speaking only for myself, I feel concerned for the weights of Qing Pang and the Zhang girl (corrected to Chinese pairs skater Dan Zhang)...
My mistake for bringing it up knowing I did not have the time to really discuss the issue fully. However, please note that I said I felt concerned certain skaters' weights, but never said I thought anyone had an eating disorder. I don't know enough to say so. With Sasha, I noted that last season "some people thought she was too thin" because last season some people posted that, and quoted what Sasha has said about the changes she has made in diet and why. Never used the term eating disorder there either or implied that she ever had one.
The subject of how thin is too thin and what actually is an eating disorder has been discussed a number of times before, always with a lot of opinions and anecdotal examples and unfortunately little medical or scientific data to substantiate those opinion and anecdotes. Having published on the subject, and having written a very LONG post (long even for me) that included medical and scientific data, IMO right now is probably not a good time to get into such a discussion. It's right before Nationals and this is the kind of subject that requires a lot of explanation of basic physiology; the physiologic differences between healthy thin and unhealthy thin; the criteria used to distinguish between the two; and medical and scientific data on the subject.
Except for extremes, you can't know anything about whether or not a person has a weight disorder (I prefer that term because I think "eating disorder" implies something that is solely a behavioral problem, which it is not) based on looks, unless you're doing a close-up exam, or based on solely on height/weight data. Perhaps the summer would be a better time to discuss this issue--though of course people can discuss anything they want--but I think all of us would have more time to look up and read the links necessary to learn the basic phsyiology of athletes and eating disorders in the off-season.
If people are interested now, I would suggest doing a Google search using "athletes eating disorders" or "figure skaters eating disorders" or any sport in conjunction with eating disorders for some good links to reliable information. Aside from noting substantiated examples of problems, such as Windspirit's quote of the article on ski jumpers and Piel and Mathman's info on wrestlers, I would hope this thread does not become like other threads on this subject, where people decide whether someone's weight is "fine" or not based on photos and eventually tempers flare. I know it's very frustrating and worse for people who are naturally thin to be accused of having an eating disorder when they don't and in the past emotions have understandably run high on this subject. It's precisely for this reason that I wish I'd never said anything without being able to either dig up my old "data packed" post or spend time writing a new one. Not that I'm the sole source or "last word," it's just that this is an example of a subject where I think certain information on physiology should be introduced into the discussion and where opinion as to "looks fine" or "looks anorexic" is inappropropriate unless tacked onto it is, "but I don't know what his/her actual situation is." I think it's also important to distinguish whether one is talking about a skater's aesthetic appearance, in which case opinion is fine, or a skater's health, in which case I think opinion has no place.
Of course I don't want to sound like, "Wait! You can't discuss this until Expert Rgirl has her full say!" I just think weight disorders fall into a category similar to a recent thread we had about the statistics of the COP where almost no one posting on the thread except one person had any substantial background in statistics, especially not the person who was arguing most often and most vociferously.
The person who started this thread wanted to bring to light a very unfortunate story about Yulia Lorbacheva's specific situation and abuses in figure skating in general. If people want to continue discussing this right now--I think it's an important issue, important enough that I'd rather see it discussed when people can focus on it more--I hope people try to be sensitive to the language they use (I include myself) and try to be sure they're clear about whether they're talking about their opinion or something they can substantiate with phsyologic analysis, the results of group studies, or case reports.
Rgirl
