Let's Talk About Eating Disorders & Athletes Eating Recovery Academy Podcast

Show Notes
What is the approach to treating eating disorders in athletes? Are the pressures of having to perform as an athlete increasing the chances of developing an eating disorder? 
In this podcast episode, Kate Fisch speaks with Linda Steinhardt about eating disorders amongst athletes. She discusses the effects that measuring body composition, the pressure to perform and injuries have on athletes and developing eating disorders.
MEET LINDA STEINHARDT
Linda Steinhardt is a registered dietitian based in Denver, Colorado. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, she completed a sports nutrition fellowship at UNC Chapel Hill. She now works at the Athlete EDGE Program within EDCare, an eating disorder treatment center where she supports athletes and general population patients in lasting recovery from eating disorders.
Visit Athlete Edge to find out more.
  IN THIS PODCAST What is body composition testing?
Is there still a necessity for measuring body composition in athletes?.
What is the approach for treating eating disorders in athletes?
Is there pressure for athletes to perfect their performance at a younger age?
 
What is body composition testing? “Body composition testing is really common, to be honest, in college athletics. I have seen, with body composition testing in colleges, they'll test an athlete 2 to 4 times per year and they'll say: hey here's your muscle percentage, here's your fat percentage.”
Linda Steinhardt
 
So what is the benefit of athletes knowing their body fat percentage etc. ? “I'm not sure I'm going to be able to help connect the dots. I think there's a lot of reasons why sports physicians in college settings are pressured, in a sense, to do body composition tests.”
Linda Steinhardt
 
It is interesting to think that there might be a belief that knowing your fat percentage (for example) and all of that could help with the goal of improving athletic performance.
 
Are we moving away (at all) from this type of measuring? “I had seen some more openness and some more curiosity in the field just of why do we do this and is this affecting athletes and is this actually helpful for performance. Are we just doing it because we think we're (quote,unquote) supposed to? And I think that has been a good shift.”
Linda Steinhardt
 
How is the approach to treating an eating disorder in an athlete different to treating someone with an eating disorder who is not an athlete? “So, I think there is a lot of overlap and I think there's some additional kind of barriers that athletes might face that put them at a higher risk of potentially developing an eating disorder. Often times we look at things like athletes are in really high pressure environments.”
Linda Steinhardt
 
How do you manage the conversation around calories? “I find, more often than not, food and exercise have become kind of compensatory, even perhaps without athletes recognizing it as such. I think it's helpful to acknowledge that: hey what are the ways in which you notice yourself eating the same or different on rest days? Do you feel better about eating when you play well, or do you find it harder to eat when you have a bad game?”
Linda Steinhardt
 
 When our diet and exercise culture has done us such an immense disservice that it's going to take decades to undo, which is simplifying humans' need for fuel.
 
Do a lot of athletes seem to lose the ability to listen to their bodies? “That's a conversation we have often. A lot of times people come in and they are really disconnected from their bodies in terms of they don't know, because the way they have been eating is from rules. Over time we can build that kind of intuition and that interoceptive awareness.”
Linda Steinhardt
 
Is there pressure for athletes to perfect their performance at a younger age? “I think that oftentimes a really big component of things is identity. In athletics often people start from