Why Do Athletes Cause Eating Disorders?

In studies it has been proven that athletes are more prone to eating disorders than non-athletes. Athletes use a tremendous energy that the body tends to want to eat more or not enough. All athletes need to keep a watch on how much they eat because an unhealthy diet could lead to poor performance, injuries, or worst of all, cause death. Athletes need to eat enough healthy food for the body to correctly function at full potential and have great performance.
The body, like a car, cannot work without gas. The body needs sufficient healthy food to work. Counseling is very useful on making wise food choices for athletes which will allow the athlete to make good habits on eating healthy. If the athlete realizes that he/she has an eating disorder then the athlete needs to get treatment or help as soon as possible, the treatment is very effective. Identifying an eating disorder can be overlooked if it is …show more content…
Psychological, biological, and social factors are implicated in the development of an eating disorder (Garner et al). The reason why factors for eating disorders are more greater for athletes is because the extra stress on the body physically demands more energy. The only way for humans to obtain energy is by eating food, best energy source is from healty food. It is proven that eating disorders are more pronounced in elite athletes. In the addition to the pressure to lose weight, athletes are often pressured by time, and they may have to lose weight rapidly to lose weight to make or stay on the team (Sundgot-Borgen). The results of this, athletes often experience periods of dieting or weight cycling. The forcing of losing weight and bad dieting is a big lead on why athletes can get eating disorders so easily. The pressure of losing weight for a sport is the sum up of the increase of prevalence with eating disorders among athletes. All this results in injuries, or worst of all,