body shaming at Oregon?

[jazzcyclist]

How long will it be before doctors get accused of body shaming for making their patients get on the scale for their annual physicals?

[gm]

"But Oregon’s women's distance program is almost nonexistent."

There are 17 women on the XC roster this year, and they scored 33 points from 1500-10K at the Pac-12 T&F champs in May. That is hardly nonexistent.

[Dave]

Are male athletes also expected to control their weight? I’m assuming the answer is yes.

[El Toro]

I may be missing something here or there may be some use of DEXA scans that I'm not aware of, but DEXA scans are used to screen for bone density problems - mainly osteoporosis and osteopenia. Our group has had a DEXA scanner for years and use it a lot. It would be used to see if the athletes bone density is too low, and they should be putting on more weight or adding more protein to increase bone density. I'm not aware of it being used to screen for body fat percentage as Ken Goe implied in the Oregon article. There are other ways to screen for body fat percentage.

I found this Australian commercial website that does both bone density and fat distribution using DEXA plus a range of other physiological/metabolic tests: https://bodymeasure.com.au/

The specific fat report produced by DEXA is shown in this sample.pdf : https://bodymeasure.com.au/wp-conten...nfographic.pdf

As for DrJay's questions about accuracy, this article from 2017 says:

Overall, the agreement of DXA-measured mass with scale weight is typically within 1%. Agreement between DXA and whole-body CT fat mass has been found to be very high as well with correlations of 0.99 but with DXA underestimating whole body fat mass by as much as 5 kg on average (40).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5659281/

[bambam1729]

How long will it be before doctors get accused of body shaming for making their patients get on the scale for their annual physicals?

Doctors have an out for that. We are required to weigh patients in order to get paid for the visit by government payors in the USA. For EMR (electronic medical record) usage in the USA it is required to have heights, weights, and vital signs. This is in all MDs offices, including orthopaedics, where 99.9% of the time it is a waste of personnel resources, time, and patient's time to take vital signs, as 99.9% of our patients are stable at office visits. But the government requires it to be paid for the visit. MDs have no choice. It is not always required for private payors, but they tend to follow government pay guidelines, although they are often a few years behind them.

[Wiederganger]

Are male athletes also expected to control their weight? I’m assuming the answer is yes.

Yes.

The central point in this discussion is that, though men's and women's bodies are different, and women naturally have a higher fat %, it's how that is managed and approached by coaches, and how does the media talk about it.

When I watch running events I will occasionally think "oh, they could do with being a bit trimmer, and then they would be faster" and I hate to admit it, but I probably do this to female athletes rather than male. Is this because of women having a higher fat %, so it must be harder to control, and thus more woman are heavier than optimal, or is this something subconscious & media influenced?

I do think there is a grown up conversation to be had. It may just be the fact that, if a woman wants to be the absolute best she can, then that means a certain fat % that is not necessarily 'healthy' in one sense, but optimal for her performance. And then she and her coach need to decide whether they are prepared to get to that %, and do all the things necessary to do it (and that may potentially have negative impact on her health in other ways or long term).

Either way, it should be a joint decision by coach and athlete, and coach should not be pressuring the athlete either way.

[El Toro]

Is this because of women having a higher fat %, so it must be harder to control, and thus more woman are heavier than optimal, or is this something subconscious & media influenced?

Well, it is subconscious in terms of recognising that the optimal athletic body is male, not female. The successful females are those with the most male characteristics, narrow hips, wide shoulders, lean muscle mass, high testosterone (natural or not), etc.

Nature makes most women fat accumulators to support successful breeding, it doesn't care about sporting careers, so when breeding fat intersects with high aerobic capacity and a desire for sporting success, we get this problem.

I do think there is a grown up conversation to be had. It may just be the fact that, if a woman wants to be the absolute best she can, then that means a certain fat % that is not necessarily 'healthy' in one sense, but optimal for her performance.

Elite sport is inherently unhealthy for both male and females but in aerobic sports, it's potentially more unhealthy for those women with high aerobic potential but fewer masculine traits. It certainly is an adult decision to be made but only by elite adult female athletes.

However, very few college distance runners fit that description, so I'd recommend focusing on training and general healthy eating and don't make elite decisions until elite standard is actually reached. If you can't get to the bottom rung of elite standard without huge dietary sacrifice, you aren't male enough to be truly elite.

This is a sport of genetic freaks and there are endless problems created by coaches and athletes thinking that hard work can overcome a lack of freakiness. It's just not possible. Accepting what limits there are is indeed a very adult decision.

[KevinR]

Yes, weight is always a factor in athletic performance. But coaches/trainers/nutritionists who are working with athletes of college age and younger need to consider the "Total Package Health" of the athletes. A huge red flag would be when a young lady stops menstruating. I also find it troubling when young men in college football line up weighing in excess of 300 pounds.

Being aware of body statistics is not inherently bad, but like anything else, it can be taken to an extreme. The health of the athlete needs to be borne in mind, beyond just the performance.

[scottmitchell74]

Yes.

The central point in this discussion is that, though men's and women's bodies are different, and women naturally have a higher fat %, it's how that is managed and approached by coaches, and how does the media talk about it.

When I watch running events I will occasionally think "oh, they could do with being a bit trimmer, and then they would be faster" and I hate to admit it, but I probably do this to female athletes rather than male. Is this because of women having a higher fat %, so it must be harder to control, and thus more woman are heavier than optimal, or is this something subconscious & media influenced?

I do think there is a grown up conversation to be had. It may just be the fact that, if a woman wants to be the absolute best she can, then that means a certain fat % that is not necessarily 'healthy' in one sense, but optimal for her performance. And then she and her coach need to decide whether they are prepared to get to that %, and do all the things necessary to do it (and that may potentially have negative impact on her health in other ways or long term).

Either way, it should be a joint decision by coach and athlete, and coach should not be pressuring the athlete either way.

This is true for men too, though. For many sports a certain BF% (in one extreme or the other- linemen, lifters, sumo wrestler) is best for the sport, but after their careers they might actually be healthier at a more normal BF%. Men's world class runners of every distance (almost) never have the leanness of their competitive years.

[scottmitchell74]

So were the old-time decision makers on to something when they wanted to keep women's distances shorter? Keep the women from doing the decathlon? The Hep is hard enough. If women's bodies are subject to greater/quicker damage in the pursuit of athletic excellence why the push to make every last thing equal to men?? Why push for the Deca?

In high-stakes athletic endeavors this will always be a problem. From coaches, parents or the athletes themselves that pressure will always be there. The stopwatch will always be there.

[booond]

So were the old-time decision makers on to something when they wanted to keep women's distances shorter?

No.

[gh]

a Twitter thread:

https://twitter.com/kengoe/status/1452654590596313101

[jazzcyclist]

Kara Goucher weighs in:

https://www.facebook.com/100044523815891/posts/420514049442719/

[booond]

a Twitter thread:

https://twitter.com/kengoe/status/1452654590596313101

What can go wrong with a twitter thread?

[gh]

Tianna Bartolett's blog:

https://tiannabee.com/blog/2021/10/25/bodygoals