Top 20 Famous Athletes with Eating Disorders
2 Jul
I remember when I first started blogging, an athlete who was training for the Olympics wrote to me for advice. Here was a girl who had worked her entire life to get to where she was, but she started to realize she didn’t want it anymore. But she couldn’t just –quit, could she?
Her parents would freak.
Her dad would disown her
Who knows what her coach would do.
This was a girl who was being pushed to the limits by all of the above — she had a coach who deprived her of water during training. Parents who watched it happen and supported the extreme lifestyle. They were living vicariously through their daughter, and there, stuck right smack in the middle was a scared, lonely girl suffering alone. I encouraged her to talk, to trust her parents and tell them what she was going through, but she never seemed like she really thought that was an option, it just seemed too scary to her because everyone would be so disappointed in her.
What a shame. Why do we place others before ourselves? Why do we not trust that our loved ones will still love us even if we disapoint them? This is a fear I hear time and time again, and I wish I had some magic words that would give the courage it takes to just be honest about what you want to do with your life.
I always wonder what happened to her, our communications became less regular, I got busier, maybe she got better, I’ll never know. But I also haven’t forgotten her.
So, today I started googling eating disorders and athletes and of course came up with a boatload of crap which tells me this is just the norm. It’s expected that in order to succeed, to be the best, we must push our bodies to the absolute limit regardless of the consequences. Check out this list of 20 athletes with EDs, you’ll recognize many of these names:
1 Nadia Comaneci – This famous gymnast has won 9 Olympic gold medals and is well-known for being the first gymnast to have achieved the score of a perfect 10. Despite all of this, Nadia struggled with both anorexia and bulimia. Today she has overcome these eating disorders through eating disorder treatment and teaches gymnastics.
2. Mia St. John – A female boxer, Mia overcame anorexia but continued experiencing body-image issues for many years. During her career she received the title of female Lightweight Champion of the World.
3. Bahne Rabe – The Olympic rower is a winner of 8 gold medals. He also however suffered from anorexia, an eating disorder which would eventually kill him. He experienced severe weight loss and weakness before his death and eventually developed a lung infection which was the primary cause of his retirement from the sport.
4. Cathy Rigby – Cathy was a gymnast, speaker and actress. She suffered from bulimia for 12 years of her life. At the World Championships she became the first woman in the United States to win a medal in World Gymnastics. She is known to have popularized gymnastics in the United States.
5. Christian Moser – Moser was a ski-jumper but slowly declined in performance of this sport due to his eating disorder.
6. Eva-Maria Fitze – A German figure skater, Eva became the youngest person to win a gold medal at the German Championships. She was 14 This young figure skater also suffered from bulimia, and eating disorder which interfered with her figure skating career.
7. Zina Garrison – Zina played tennis and successfully won 2 Olympic medals. Unfortunately, at the same time she also was suffering from bulimia. At age 19, she began struggling with this disorder and may have partly developed it as a result of overwhelming stress.
8. Helga Brathen – Helga, a gymnast, died from the complications of anorexia at the age of 29.
9. Whitney Spannuth – This cross-country runner developed an eating disorder in an attempt to become thinner, hoping it would help in competitions. Her eating disorder however eventually caused her severe health complications and made her body very weak. Bulimia and anorexia nearly caused her to miss her chance at the Olympics.
10 Franziska van Almsick – During her swimming career, Franziska, also known as “Franzi”, suffered from a variety of problems which caused constant highs and lows in her career. In her teens, she developed anorexia, which continued for a few years. This athlete began swimming at an early age and set a number of world records.
11 Nancy Kerrigan – A winner of 2 Olympic medals for figure skating, Nancy also struggled with an eating disorder. Her eating disorder may have been triggered in part by being purposely injured in the leg by a hired attacker.
12 Kelly Masey – Masey was a gymnast who also suffered from an eating disorder. She is thought to have begun this disorder as a result of high pressure to succeed in the sport.
13 Martina Eberl – Martina, a German golfer, struggled with the eating disorder bulimia. This disorder began when the golfer was about 14 years old. She had the illness for over ten years before she finally sought out treatment. Today, she is recovered and has since returned to golf.
14 Stefan Zund – This Swiss ski-jumper dealt with an eating disorder that eventually ended his sports career. During his career, he won several victories at the World-Cup.
15 Christy Henrich – This U.S. gymnast eventually developed anorexia and bulimia, eating disorders which plagued her for several years. The story frequently mentioned is that she was told by a United States judge that she was too fat to excel in gymnastics, and thus developed an eating disorder to lose weight. Eventually, multiple organ failure (caused by her disorder) killed her at the age of 22, she was 47 pounds.
16 Megan Neyer – Megan, a professional diver, struggled with bulimia for approximately 7 years. This may have been due to her perfectionist and competitive nature.
17 Laffit Pincay – This jockey dealt with the eating disorder anorexia. During his career he was named the leading jockey of the United States 7 times, he also won a variety of other awards.
18 Jamie Silverstein – After 5 years of struggling with anorexia, Jamie, a pairs figure skater, sought help for her disorder. She took four years off from ice skating and after her recovery was once again able to compete and perform in competitions such as the Olympics.
19 Kathy Johnson – This gymnast developed anorexia after harsh criticism about her weight from a coach.
20 Heidi Guenther – Heidi was a ballet dancer who struggled with anorexia after being advised by her ballet company to lose 5 pounds. She died at the age of 22 because of the complications associated with her disorder. After her death, a program was created to raise awareness and reduce eating disorders in dancers.
18 women, 2 men. All greatly admired for their amazing talent, hailed heroes, with absolutely no discussion about the hell they suffered to get there.
Yet another example of how eating disorders are so ingrained in our society, there’s almost no escaping it.
mV
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It really has become the norm. It’s incredibly sad. I don’t understand this world we live in or why we seem so hellbent on destroying ourselves “perfection”.
I meant- for “perfection”.
David Couldhard (Formula 1 driver) – Bulimia
Sven Hannawald (Ski- Jumper) – Anorexia I believe.
Woh, reading that list of people made me nearly cry. I am not an athlete but I am nearly 22 (July 7th) and I have suffered from Anorexia and Bulimia for 10 years and this kind of thing really hits hard, reinforces that knowledge that i try to forget, that knowledge that this could kill me.
Why do we place others before ourselves?
i think because in the beginning of our lives, we are completely helpless and dependent over others. our need to please our parents, the ones who feed and care for us, runs deep, it is written in our makeup. and that is why our relationship with our parents affect every other relationship we have.
And these are only the ones we know about. Imagine the countless others suffering in silence ….
It’s much easier to hide an ED as an athlete too, because you can just say that you’re “training,” if you’re working out excessively and stuff.
Exactly. Its like runners who are training for marathon, yet they look like death, and no one says anything.
Warped,
mV
nice to see you PTC!
As a former competitive gymnast i know the pressures that coaches, other gymnasts, and even parents can put on you.
Trying to be lighter so i was more “aerodynamic” trying to loose the weight so you look better in a leo. It’s tough. I was fairly tall for my age and inches above most of the gymnasts i trained with, and my coach still expected me to weigh the same as them and told me every day at weigh in. When i didn’t eat i would get praised by my coach and other gymnasts for having will-power, and when i did eat a “normal” meal my coach would tell me to put it down and go run.
It was almost inevitable that i developed an eating disorder.
The sad thing is it wasn’t just my coach who was like that MANY athletic coaches are the same way.
Thanks for your input Lacy Lou. Your story reflects how our society accepts the “requirements” of athleticism — I mean, really — is it a fact that a gymnast weighing 100 pounds vs 110 pounds is more “aerodynamic?”
Highly doubt it, just like boys who wrestle starving to get into the lower weight class. If all the athletes were required to stay at their normal body weight, then they would all naturally fall into their appropriate weight class — but competition brings out the worst in us.
Take care of yourself XO
MV
Great post! I struggled with compulsive exercise for years, to the point of near-death, and though my training has become more focussed and reined-in, I have to be very careful with the competition…
I was once professional figure/bodybuilder and this was the gate way for me into a life of disorderd eating.
I have since given this up, but the habits are hard to break.I have many friends still in the industry, and thier body image issues are so in grained, so sad and so vain.
I was out with an old friend last week, who told me that she wakes up in the middle of the night suffering w panic attacks about cellulite. ??? The sad part, is it is actuallt accepted in this industry.
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Great article
For more information on athletes and eating disorders I recommend you visit
Eating Disorders In Athletes – Anorexia Nervosa Athletica And Bulimia Nervosa In Sport
All i ever wanted to do was to play basketball for Australia at the olympics.
i was always chosen in the top teams at my club and went quite far with the sport.
i was also super competitive and a total perfectionist because of values i had adopted throughout my childhood.
When i was 13years old, i had a coach who became very unstable after the death of her best friend at the beginning of the season. The team i was in at the time had a lot of external interest from the club and wider community because we had SO much potential.
i was named at the beginning of the season as the team’s “captain” but ended up spending 90% of the season on the bench.
The harder i tried, the more mistakes i made, the less court time i got, the more upset and angry i got at myself, the harder i tried and the more mistakes i made etc etc.
The next season i was not put in the 1st team because of my “attitude” (i.e. i got stressed and upset at my mistakes and got angry at people).
Being in the 2nd team, the standard of training and games was MUCH worse and no matter how hard i tried, i just couldn’t play like i could before.
The next season i was put in the 3rd team,
and it nearly killed me.
i fell totally and completely into anorexia.
The more i sat on the bench, the more i hated myself, the more weight i wanted to lose and the more the coach didn’t want to put me on the court etc etc.
All i wanted was to be “good” again- and to be back playing in the 1st team which was full of girls who i had always thought of as my “real family” because my home life was too stressful and un-fulfilling for me.
Almost everyone of those girls (and their parents..especially their parents!!) chose to forget about me.
i was no longer of any use to them -as far as advancing their own basketball career was concerned- so they gave up all faith and interest they ever had in me, and forgot i ever existed.
Sporting clubs/teams can be THE most volatile and cut-throat environments to grow up in, and it is in every parents interest to monitor the psychological effects of their child’s involvement in these institutions, because it can VERY suddenly and unexpectedly become a matter of life and death.
i was eventually hospitalised and “re-fed”.
i have never gotten over losing the only thing in my life that i loved, and made me feel loved, which was basketball.
i still suffer terribly today from eating disorder and major depression. i am VERY strongly medicated, i spend the majority of my time at the doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, dietitians etc instead of on the basketball court, and my schooling was severely impacted.
Be VERY careful about the pressure you put on yourself and others- even if it is only “a game”.
A sport should not be more important than a life.