[abarro81]

All I've taken from this thread is that I need to diet harder.

[petejh]

Almost totally unqualified to pass comment, being that I'm both light and well-nourished, so I will.

Is this really that widespread an issue relative to the deleterious effects of other sports/hobbies?
Rugby, football etc - loads of broken bones and legions of 40-somethings with chronically knackered knees, hips, backs, shoulders etc. etc.
Extreme Skiing - same
Mountain biking - hmmm... the most eager-to-injure-themselves people I know are mountain bikers.

Sedentary fat fucks with a typical western diet- riskier than a big-mountain skiing prop forward.

Am I missing a vineyard of gossip about lots of keen climbers suffering with diseases resultant of malnourishment?

[Danny]

You're all just a bunch of tubby naysayers.

The problem is many (if not all) aspects of climbing can have negative effects on some component of health. From acute smash-yourself-to-bits or pop-connective-tissue type injuries, to chronic overuse and arthritis, to the very real objective dangers of alpine, trad and general soloing shenanigans.

On paper, climbing offers many ways to shorten life expectancy. I actually admire those with the commitment to shed pounds just to get up a route as much as I admire the more directly risky act of (free) soloing big walls. On the other hand I recognise they're both crazy in their own ways: both are potentially life shortening, and both probably more often than not come with some attached psychological issues.
   

[kelvin]

I just wanna be loved.

[scottygillery]

We are all puzzled by his change, his wife is puzzled, his brother also...

Best of luck hope it goes well.

This thread has focussed on reduced life expectancy as the effect of easting disorders. But there are many immediate ones. Depression (at never being light enough), poor self-esteem(at never looking thin enough!), grumpiness (i'm grumpy when hungry), social anxiety (think having to eat in social situations). The down side of these is the effect they can have on relationships , work, play and climbing.

1. Sedentary fat fucks with a typical western diet- riskier than a big-mountain skiing prop forward.

2. Am I missing a vineyard of gossip about lots of keen climbers suffering with diseases resultant of malnourishment?

1. This is the starving children in Africa argument. Not relevant
2. Your ignorance may stem from the malnourished look becoming the norm in climbing. This is similar to the extreme eating habits being normalised argument I made above - it becomes a way to justify being a bit too skinny.

On the other hand I recognise they're both crazy in their own ways: both are potentially life shortening, and both probably more often than not come with some attached psychological issues.   

This I think partly the Africa argument again. This thread is about eating disorders not risky climbing being bad for your health. Does some climbers doing one of these somehow justify the other?

There are two points relating to eating disorders that I often ponder... perhaps someone could comment.
1. The best climbers these days tend to look well nourished. Malc said he climbed better when he'd stopped trying to stay skinny. But the skeleton climb hard way of thinking is still common at the crag.
2. How many times can the losing weight trick work? Once you've lost weight you'll get worse if you put it back on so you need to keep thin. And the next step up can only come from loosing more weight right? By this logic it only works once. John Dunne had a different approach but it's the constant maintaining of a low weight that I see as a problem.

[Danny]

With respect, you're obfuscating the obvious parallels between one unhealthy aspect of the sport and another. These can and should be drawn; they are relevant to the debate.

I didn't limit my argument to obviously risky aspects of the sport - all the usual chronic overuse issues fall in the unhealthy camp.

On the psychological side, what really justifies separating the neurological correlates of eating disorders with the depression, narcissism, insecurity, selfishness and alexithymia that pervades all aspects of society and the climbing community?

I'm not sure its actually an issue other than anecdotally (as a few top climbers have been open about their own battles). By that I mean more prevalent in the general and elite climbing population above societal background levels. Particularly once you account for the obvious selection effects of skinnier folk sticking at climbing because they tend to be better at it.     

Also, did you see the Legends Only competition? Modern top climbers are skinny fucks, or at the very least have very low body fat. Yes, unhealthy amounts, but I would wager that each one of them will be in the top quartile of the life expectancy distribution once they pop their respective clogs.

[elliepygall]

  I have just read this thread and I'm so shocked by peoples obstinate denial of what is a sadly real, yet totally unnecessary aspect of the climbing community!!

Maybe part of the reason that people are in denial, is that people who struggle with eating disorders can be very good at hiding their problems. This in itself is incredibly sad, as people end up becoming  introverted, and this in turn can lead to many of the social ramifications that scottygillery described.

Danny..... does Jan Hojer really look like he has starved himself?!

Also Danny, how can you describe a problem other than anecdotally?! I don't expect a graph with everyone's BMI plotted. As further anecdotal evidence I know several people who have been affected by eating disorders and it's a horrible thing to have to go through.

Nibile - good luck chatting to your friend

[Nibile]

it's a horrible thing to have to go through.

It is, believe me.

[abarro81]

I can only think of a couple of people in the peak scene who I'd think of as probably having an eating disorder? Maybe another couple on the boarderline. I'm unconvinced that it's that prevalent. There's a few top climbers who look unhealthily skinny, especially a few of the girls, but not shit loads.

When that Durif thing came out I had a conversation with Stu about the drugs parallel (my initial gut feeling being that it's strange to ban drugs in sport at all; I place no weight on the 'fairness' argument since sport is inherently unfair), in which I think he convinced me that banning drugs and 'banning' being unhealthily light should be viewed as worthwhile in a 'saving athletes from themselves' kind of way. Not sure what my point is here, just a topical anecdote.

2. How many times can the losing weight trick work? Once you've lost weight you'll get worse if you put it back on so you need to keep thin. And the next step up can only come from loosing more weight right? By this logic it only works once. John Dunne had a different approach but it's the constant maintaining of a low weight that I see as a problem.

I just cycle between heavy mode and light mode, so do most people I know.. works fine so long as you don't mind having periods where you're not quite as on it as you'd like, e.g. winter bouldering season for a sport climber

[duncan]

Maybe part of the reason that people are in denial, is that people who struggle with eating disorders can be very good at hiding their problems.

An occasional climbing partner in times past spent time in hospital with anorexia. Male, didn't look abnormal in a climbing context. I didn't have a clue.

[slackline]

I'm not sure its actually an issue other than anecdotally (as a few top climbers have been open about their own battles). By that I mean more prevalent in the general and elite climbing population above societal background levels. Particularly once you account for the obvious selection effects of skinnier folk sticking at climbing because they tend to be better at it.     

Population prevalnce in different "general populations" are provided by...

Eating Disorders and Obesity: A Comprehensive Handbook : Chapter 41 Distribution of Eating Disorders

More recently in 2012...

Smink, Frédérique RE, Daphne van Hoeken, and Hans W. Hoek. "Epidemiology of eating disorders: incidence, prevalence and mortality rates." Current psychiatry reports 14.4 (2012): 406-414.

Can't find anything anywhere focusing on climbing, but I doubt rates are much different from the general population either.

[Muenchener]

did you see the Legends Only competition? Modern top climbers are skinny fucks, or at the very least have very low body fat.

Surely very few top athletes in any sport (except powerlifting) have double digit bodyfat percentages?

[Doylo]

I'm a mild weight yo yoer . I do a 3 weeks diet once a year after winter just to shed the winter blubber. I'm lucky in that it doesn't go back on that quick. When I am heavier I just accept that I'm not going to be as good and my form goes up and down regardless of weight anyway. Climbing was always going to end up with this problem. The simple fact is the lighter you are the easier it is! And so there are always going to be people who take it to the extremes, I don't see what you can do about that. Some will have a genuine mental illness and some are just stupid. I wouldn't want to look disgusting to climb a grade or two harder. Maybe in the future we'll have weight categories for comps like in boxing. Everyone who has done my lifetime climbing goal was at least a stone and a half lighter than me. It's not a level playing field but that's life!

[petejh]

Chris your weight is really no excuse for still not having done Grooved Arete

[Doylo]

Tryfans high and scary though...

[petejh]

I have just read this thread and I'm so shocked by peoples obstinate denial of what is a sadly real, yet totally unnecessary aspect of the climbing community!!

Maybe part of the reason that people are in denial, is that people who struggle with eating disorders XYZ can be very good at hiding their problems. This in itself is incredibly sad, as people end up becoming  introverted, and this in turn can lead to many of the social ramifications that scottygillery described.

That paragraph could be used to describe pretty much the whole spectrum of human mental suffering from Anxiety to Zog Syndrome. It doesn't mean people are in denial. All it illustrates is begging a question.
(I made up Zog Syndrome, although I'm sure it's a problem for someone somewhere).

Also Danny, how can you describe a problem other than anecdotally?! I don't expect a graph with everyone's BMI plotted. As further anecdotal evidence I know several people who have been affected by eating disorders and it's a horrible thing to have to go through.

Because who needs facts when you've got anecdotes.

[Nibile]

Leaving aside the bodybuilding pics, I found this article a very sobering read.
http://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/truth-about-metabolic-damage

[Doylo]

Lightness doesn't always equal strong fingers though. Look at Steve 'I'm weak as piss' Mcclure. He's lucky he's got tenacity and strong feet 

[petejh]

Must be why he steers clear of crimpy routes...

[Danny]

Danny..... does Jan Hojer really look like he has starved himself?!

Also Danny, how can you describe a problem other than anecdotally?! I don't expect a graph with everyone's BMI plotted. As further anecdotal evidence I know several people who have been affected by eating disorders and it's a horrible thing to have to go through.

I would not at all be surprised if Jan was less the 5 % body fat, and he too had been dieting for the previous world cup season.
 
I think slackers has very quickly given you a decent baseline for a more objective consideration. I'm afraid nothing less than a graph will do if you're going to make sweeping claims of prevalence based on what your mate or family member went through, although the climbing specific info isn't conveniently knocking about. And BMI isn't really going to help either, because of the aforementioned selection effects climbers will be skinnier on average.

So, anecdotally, we have the selection effects of climbers being skinnier than average, this is surely pronounced in the climbing elite who know that weight and performance are linked to some degree, and exploit this cyclically. Would you not even be open to the possibility, then, that some proportion of these perceived eating disorders are in fact just a buck of skinny fucks trying to climb as hard as possible?

Note that we've already had a bunch of observations along the lines of so and so has skinny legs, drawn eyes, is miserable etc.
All of this may be true, and these individuals may have an eating disorder, but I could name many climbers and non climbers alike who fit these descriptors and also eat like merry horses.

[Doylo]

Must be why he steers clear of crimpy routes...

Imagine what he could do if he wasn't so weak.

[Danny]

Must be why he steers clear of crimpy routes...

Imagine what he could do if he wasn't so weak.

Imagine what he could do if he ever tied his shoelaces.

[petejh]

Surely very few top athletes in any sport (except powerlifting) have double digit bodyfat percentages?

<pedant>
Sumo
</pedant>

[AlistairB]

Saying that anecdotes don't count is all well and good but as you concede, there's no data here anyway so what exactly are we left with? I wouldn't necessarily say that climbing has a particular problem with eating disorders (compared to similar sports) but I know plenty of female climbers who have serious problems with their relationship with food and their bodies. So many women have problems with this anyway as a result of unrealistic portrayal of women in the media (that's a whole separate issue) that if they're pushing themselves in a sport where power to weight ratio is critical, it just provides another motivation to not eat with often fairly unpleasant consequences. We're not talking about controlled eating of smaller amounts of food here, we're talking about eating one apple a day and that kind of misery. Of course, anyone looking at that from the outside knows that that isn't conducive to good recovery or long-term performance but you're forgetting that eating disorders are completely irrational.

I think you guys who are arguing with Ellie here are pretty ignorant of the difference between men and women here. Last time I looked, the scientific consensus was that men can go about as low as physically possible without any serious harm (at least in the medium term). Unfortunately, women by virtue of naturally having a higher bodyfat percentage to begin with have most to gain by aggressively reducing this. But some pretty nasty things start to happen when women go into the same sort of single-figure percentages that men can happily exist at. Probably the closest sport to climbing in terms of demanding maximal power to weight with a focus on upper-body is gymnastics and women's gymnastics is a veritable car-crash for eating disorders: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/psychology/health_psychology/gymnasts.htm (there is tons of literature out there for those interested, note the number of legendary female gymnasts who have subsequently admitted to eating disorders).

A lot of the responses so far are confusing dieting and eating disorders. I think this quote from the link above nicely summarizes the difference:

Some male athletes do use extreme methods for losing weight, but an important difference exists between these and the self-starvation strategies of anorexics. For instance, a wrestler's perception of his body is not distorted and when he is not competing, he can regain the weight with ease.

I don't think that denying that this happens in our sport is very productive, I don't think climbing is as bad as gymnastics or particularly different to other power to weight focused sports but I definitely have met people through climbing whose perceived need to be light to climb their best was stoking an eating disorder which was jeopardizing their general health. And there's still plenty of others who battle those kind of thoughts every time they sit down to eat. I don't have a solution to propose but I think we should be aware. I suspect that this is a big problem in lead competitions but as this is a relatively new sport we're not really hearing about it yet, if you look at the gymnasts it often takes a long time before people feel able to talk about it.

[Danny]

Alistair, I would largely agree with most of what you're saying. Eating disorders are surely more prevalent in the elite than in the general climbing population, and more prevalent in females than males (there must be loads of data on this). My point is that these trends will likely square well with equivalent groups elsewhere in society, i.e. that, as you say, it isn't a particular problem in climbing above background equivalents. 

I'm not saying it isn't a problem at all, just that anecdotes are (still) not overly helpful in pinning down its magnitude.