UKBouldering.com
the shizzle => diet, training and injuries => Topic started by: andy_e on February 01, 2021, 06:21:21 pm
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thtDQJGrO5s
I feel like this film is pretty important. I've not really paid much attention to discussions of dieting and weight on here, but I do think that there's a lot of unhealthy attitudes towards eating in climbing in general, which is neither good for those with disordered eating, trending towards an eating disorder, or newer climbers seeing or hearing about being light, thinking it's a necessary part of climbing, and developing disordered eating habits.
In the past I've calorie counted pretty strictly. Now I don't, and generally I eat a lot more, but am climbing harder than ever, and don't have any anxiety or disorder when it comes to food. I can't be the only "regular guy" to be in a similar situation.
Dave MacLeod is often cited as someone whose personal experiments with diets (e.g. keto) are a reason why people should follow specific diets whilst training, but I think this makes dangerous assumptions. Firstly Dave Mac is Dave Mac, and people's hormone levels differ naturally, so extreme dieting will affect different people differently. Dave's always keen to point out that "n=1" with his experiments, and that he's only doing it for himself, but I'm not sure people pick up on that and end up following his extreme diets anyway. Secondly, and probably most importantly, Dave is a trained sports scientist, and knows his limits, so whilst it could be argued that Dave has a disordered relationship with food (especially raspberry cheesecakes), he seems to be totally in control of his diet. This will not work for everyone.
The film is very honest, open, positive, and thought provoking. It shows that you do not need to be a rake, unhealthy and at risk of serious bodily damage, to climb your best, you just need determination. Like most things in climbing, or a toxically masculine environment, talking about these things is difficult, but I urge everyone to do so. Eat healthy, be happy with your own body, climb hard.
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:worms: :worms: :worms:
We're gonna need a bigger can!!
Climbing - despite what you say - is partly unavoidably based around power-to-weight (relative to height), and is also an obsessive, driven, goal-chasing fixation. It's not surprising that it's rife with people crossing over from "sensible healthy athletic diets" to full-on mentally/physically destructive eating disorders, whether they're clear about it, pretend they don't have a disorder, or use some fancy terminology-babble like "REDS".
Having said that it fucking sucks being on the other side of the fence, with a digestive / fitness disorder instead of an eating disorder. Yes at some points in your life you can climb better heavier than when you were lighter, but it will invariably be DESPITE the heaviness not because of it (unless you're starting from having a particularly extreme muscular deficiency issue). Determination is great but can only do so much against carrying an extra 15kg above a normal healthy weight up, especially when that extra weight carries extra injury risks in training to compensate for it.
And yes, what works for Dave Mac clearly can work very well if, errr, you're Dave Mac, and all that entails with research, self-discipline, robotic willpower, etc.
Good worms to unleash anyway.
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Thought provoking and difficult subject with some insightful thoughts and experiences from the interviewed climbers.
Viewing should prompt a reality check to ask yourself what your attitude to your own weight is and whether that is fucked up in any way whether rooted in body image or performance.
At a group level it asks whether the community you are in is fucked up and whether you might be unknowingly contributing to others disorders?. How careful do we have to be in what we say? and at what point do you address friends who look at risk and if you do how do you go about it?
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At a group level it asks whether the community you are in is fucked up and whether you might be unknowingly contributing to others disorders?
Haven't watched the film yet - I will - but this is a useful point. Our subset of the population is not 'normal'. In my other sport the scrawny are also rewarded and successful. I remember browsing a copy of 'Fellrunner' at work some time ago and my colleague's horror at the skeletal figures within. You know, the role models for that other freak community. I know of at least a couple of people at national success level ...with eating disorders.
Correlation is not causation of course, the people at the very top of all kinds of trees are by definition unusual animals.
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Our subset of the population is not 'normal'.
An aside (not watched the film yet, will try to later), but probably best to steer away from comparison to "normal" since "normal" is not healthy in most of the UK
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So, watched this yesterday evening and not sure what to make of it to be honest. Firstly on the positive note I think it raises some important issues that especially young and impressionable climbers need to be aware of. It’s also well made and I liked the interviews with Angie Payne and Emily Harrington.
However I don’t think it is particularly balanced and doesn’t do anything to discuss what a healthy weight is and how given climbing is a power/strength to weight sport there is a balance to be struck between weight and strength. Avoiding the fact that most people will probably need at least to control what they eat and avoid gaining too much weight doesn’t help. I also thought that it was overly somber and grim. I think this comes from the fact that the film maker has an eating disorder herself and then projects these issues onto all that she sees.
By the way I am not saying that I don’t think some people have issues in the world of climbing and the recent over-caffeinated sugary drink company video of Angela Eitner shows (in my opinion) that some clearly do. However I just don’t think that for the majority of people (even those climbing fairly hard) things are as grim as she portrays.
Happy to be contradicted here, this was just my opinion of the film
Dave
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However I don’t think it is particularly balanced and doesn’t do anything to discuss what a healthy weight is and how given climbing is a power/strength to weight sport there is a balance to be struck between weight and strength.
Can’t anyone enjoy climbing, irrespective of their weight?
Increasingly down the wall you see all shapes and sizes. And there are so many children starting climbing at a very young age now. You might get healthier by participating in climbing but as soon as you’re talking about weight loss to improve performance it’s dangerous ground IMO.
As someone who started dieting from age 11 because all the top climbers were skinny, I found it a pretty difficult film to watch. Climbing culture is pretty fucked up in my opinion and the fact that they only got one guy on camera says a lot.
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However I don’t think it is particularly balanced and doesn’t do anything to discuss what a healthy weight is and how given climbing is a power/strength to weight sport there is a balance to be struck between weight and strength.
Can’t anyone enjoy climbing, irrespective of their weight?
Increasingly down the wall you see all shapes and sizes. And there are so many children starting climbing at a very young age now. You might get healthier by participating in climbing but as soon as you’re talking about weight loss to improve performance it’s dangerous ground IMO.
As someone who started dieting from age 11 because all the top climbers were skinny, I found it a pretty difficult film to watch. Climbing culture is pretty fucked up in my opinion and the fact that they only got one guy on camera says a lot.
I agree that anyone can enjoy climbing regardless of size and shape and as you say there are many people down the wall of all kinds of body shapes etc. This is great and I clearly think climbing is an amazing sport/lifestyle and I think everyone should do it.
I disagree that climbing culture is fucked up. I agree that some people may have some dangerous ideas about weight and body image and that we need as a sport to be clear about this. However I also think it is reasonable to accept that climbing is a strength to weight sport and that achieving a healthy balance to achieve performance is fine. I do agree that it is difficult ground but to avoid the discussion is not helpful as it is the reality that most people who have climbed for a long period and are unlikely to make significant strength gains find themselves in.
Again happy to be contradicted here
Dave
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I don’t feel that the film set out to be balanced, I saw it more as a personal reflection, a story of two friends, and a cautionary tale.
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No doubt there are some issues amongst the elite (elite sport is generally unhealthy) and I can imagine some of this trickles down to a susceptible minority. However, for the most part, I look around and all I can see are people who appear healthier because of climbing. Appearances may not always be reality but I think for the most part they are.
In fact, every climber I know that started climbing around the same time as me or after appears healthier and fitter than prior to climbing, and I haven't heard of, nor do I suspect any mental health issues amongst them relating to diet or body image. There also seems to be mounting evidence that caloric restriction can increase life expectancy and health outcomes.
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For an example closer to home and current day, Jo Neame wrote some V honest stuff on her insta https://www.instagram.com/p/CC4Jq8WDeZa/?igshid=5d4tq5xotq7l
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Of course the best thing is to achieve a healthy balance.
Through the late ‘80s and ‘90s low body weight was promoted as the ideal. If you can get hold of a copy of The Power of Climbing or On The Edge magazine you’ll see what I mean. Malcolm Smith’s broccoli diet was celebrated in the 1991 issue ‘The Young Ones’ and is still talked about now, almost with reverence by some people of my generation/in my peer group. That’s fucked up.
I don’t want to avoid ‘discussion’ but the fact that there are so few qualified people in climbing compared to other sports who know WTF they are talking about around nutrition etc is a big barrier.
And I don’t think this is just an issue at elite level. I look around and see a lot of unhealthy climbers. Maybe I’ve spent too much time at The Foundry?! It’s just accepted, especially amongst men.
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When I started climbing in the ‘70s, my “heroes” smoked tabs (rolling them, one handed, whilst run out above a dodgy hex, contemplating some greasy, thrutchy crux), ate pasties* and finished a days climbing in a snug with five or six pints and a basket of chicken** and chips...
Not sure that much has changed in the “healthy role model” department, except a lurch from one extreme to the other.
*Lunch
**Deep fried, in lard, with the skin on (and a couple of packets of Pork Scratchings to cap pints 3&4).
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Of course the best thing is to achieve a healthy balance.
Through the late ‘80s and ‘90s low body weight was promoted as the ideal. If you can get hold of a copy of The Power of Climbing or On The Edge magazine you’ll see what I mean. Malcolm Smith’s broccoli diet was celebrated in the 1991 issue ‘The Young Ones’ and is still talked about now, almost with reverence by some people of my generation/in my peer group. That’s fucked up.
I don’t want to avoid ‘discussion’ but the fact that there are so few qualified people in climbing compared to other sports who know WTF they are talking about around nutrition etc is a big barrier.
And I don’t think this is just an issue at elite level. I look around and see a lot of unhealthy climbers. Maybe I’ve spent too much time at The Foundry?! It’s just accepted, especially amongst men.
I grew up climbing in the late 80s and clearly remember those issues. Personally I really wasn’t climbing hard enough for me to make the connection and I just thought the broccoli thing was a joke.
I think the difficulty is that one person’s healthy weight is another person’s dangerously low body weight. I am sure that most people would agree that I am skinny (and you may even look at me and think I am unhealthy) but my BMI is about 20-21. I don’t think I have ever dropped below 20. I gain some weight over Xmas and December (about 10-12pounds) and then lose this by eating healthily and not drinking alcohol for Jan and Feb. For me this is not disordered eating it is just being healthy.
I agree the film didn’t attempt to be balanced and was a reflection but I just think it would have been nice to also have some other view points in there.
Dave
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I agree with the arguments about lack of balance
My view of it was that the video was as much about people's relationship with food rather than their objective body weight.
I used to look at Ricky Hatton's up's and down's around fights and wonder how healthy that was. Equally, friends who competed at a high level in thai boxing had much better associations with food and were only up and down 5kg or so to get into their class.
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I thought the film was fantastic.
In my view thinking climbing* does not have a problem with how it discusses - and positively treats low body weight (and thereby eating disorders) is a similar concept to thinking society does not have a problem with racism.
Comments about body weight, body shape, eating and dieting are common within this forum - throughout the climbing media and in many conversations at the wall. These are largely unintentional - but if you think about it they are everywhere. I've done it - whether its saying 'feeling floaty' - 'lost a kilo or two and climbing well' etc..
I liked how the film framed climbing well about being strong (rather than light) and thats something I will take on board and try to adjust my language and behavior accordingly.
*and other bodyweight sports too I guess - but I'm not qualified to say......
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I used to look at Ricky Hatton's up's and down's around fights and wonder how healthy that was. Equally, friends who competed at a high level in thai boxing had much better associations with food and were only up and down 5kg or so to get into their class.
Current professional fighting is about as unhealthy as it gets, and it's a shame as they are in absolute peak condition the week before the fight. However, modern weigh in procedures mean that to be competitive, you need to drop 10-20lbs of water weight in the days leading up to the weigh in and put it back on in 24 hours before the fight. That or be the smaller man. You may ask how much does 10lb matter? Well imagine projecting at your limit with an extra 10lbs!
Now imagine having to do this drastic water cut 30-60 times throughout a professional career (more including amateur contests) then getting punched in the head with a dehydrated brain (research shows the body rehydrates before the brain). CTE is just about guaranteed.
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I thought the film was fantastic.
In my view thinking climbing* does not have a problem with how it discusses and positively treats low body weight (and thereby eating disorders) is a similar concept to thinking society does not have a problem with racism.
Really!? This seems a bit of a stretch. Society quite clearly has a problem with racism. I don’t think convoluting discussing weight and racism is helpful and just makes it difficult to discuss the topic without getting into you’re wrong and I’m right kinds of discussions.
Dave
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I look around and see a lot of unhealthy climbers. Maybe I’ve spent too much time at The Foundry?! It’s just accepted, especially amongst men.
Genuine question. What visible signs are you judging these climbers to be unhealthy by?
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In my view thinking climbing* does not have a problem with how it discusses and positively treats low body weight (and thereby eating disorders) is a similar concept to thinking society does not have a problem with racism.
This. "I don't see it therefore I don't think it exists" doesn't really address the issues that may well be personal to some people and hidden.
I'm not sure what balance there could be, the fact is that the culture within climbing leads to some people having disordered eating. I think the topic of "how to eat healthily" is a different topic altogether and needs to be addressed elsewhere.
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@ Liamhutch89
Yea good call, hadn't considered the extreme water drop too
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I look around and see a lot of unhealthy climbers. Maybe I’ve spent too much time at The Foundry?! It’s just accepted, especially amongst men.
Genuine question. What visible signs are you judging these climbers to be unhealthy by?
Very low body fat percentage. Frequent references to dieting/unhealthy diet and undereating. References to other’s body shape. Frequent injury occurrence. Desire for peer recognition of low body fat (‘tops off for power’ etc)
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I'm sure when watching 'Eddie' on netflix, he discusses an almost unhealthy obsession with food/training and other obvious side effects (e.g. sleep apnea)
I'm not saying this should be normalised or that it's ideal. But I think there are potentially a whole range of unhealthy behaviours in lots of sports that are just accepted, rightly or wrongly
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the fact is that the culture within climbing leads to some people having disordered eating.
For this to be fact, the rate of disordered eating would have to be higher amongst climbers than the general population. If I walk around any town centre (not during lockdown) and take the weight, BMI, cholesterol figures etc. of a hundred people then go to the depot and look at a hundred climbers, I would suspect the climbers average a healthier weight, which would then be reasonable to conclude they eat healthier.
If a greater percentage of the general population have disordered eating (probably eating too much) then it's not fair to say climbing is a problem just because there are a minority that unfortunately have issues.
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Kai Lightner's coaching telling him he will never be good because he is too heavy, leading to Kai having a serious eating disorder, is proof that climbing leads to some people having disordered eating.
The issue you're talking about, which is general population health, is a different issue, and I agree with you that people who start doing more exercise, such as indoor bouldering, get healthier, that's no surprise. But the drive for "physical perfection" leads people to have disordered eating, which is unhealthy (albeit in a different way to trends of rising obesity in the general population).
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We could combat this by ensuring that climbing moved to having a standardised personal weight. All routes would be graded using this metric and if you wanted to take the "proper tick" you would need to either weigh the weight or to carry extra to make up the weight.
It would be like the use of knee pads. Of course you could diet and climb "hard grades" but everyone would knowingly mutter under their breath about it being cheating.
In comps they would weigh you before you tied on and then hand you a few extra kg.
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We could combat this by ensuring that climbing moved to having a standardised personal weight. All routes would be graded using this metric and if you wanted to take the "proper tick" you would need to either weigh the weight or to carry extra to make up the weight.
It would be like the use of knee pads. Of course you could diet and climb "hard grades" but everyone would knowingly mutter under their breath about it being cheating.
In comps they would weigh you before you tied on and then hand you a few extra kg.
Music to my ears. I'm continually reminded that I can take a grade off for lank, but seldom told I can add one back on for weight!
Perhaps remove a grade for every 4 inches taller than the FA and add a grade for every 10kg above? :goodidea:
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Desire for peer recognition of low body fat (‘tops off for power’ etc)
Tops off for power magic still works when no one is around - even when you aren’t recording
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I look around and see a lot of unhealthy climbers. Maybe I’ve spent too much time at The Foundry?! It’s just accepted, especially amongst men.
Genuine question. What visible signs are you judging these climbers to be unhealthy by?
Frequent injury occurrence.
I suspect this is a more common issue than people recognise. I knew a girl that was a super keen runner and also was very controlled about her diet (I suspect had an easting disorder but obviously I'm not qualified to say). She got stuck in cycles of getting a muscle injury, trying to recover (but I suspect not having enough energy/nutrients etc to properly mend), then trying to build up strength again too quickly with more intense training, re-injury etc etc. She was obsessed with being healthy, but from my point of view she was just damaging herself more. But I think she was almost addicted to the process of training, controlling diet, "being healthy". I wasn't nice to watch but I also didn't feel like I could say anything apart from encouraging her to rest well and let it heal.
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Ironically given the conversation, I feel like (at least online) climbing conversation is a full 180 from the "light is right" mentality of days gone by. My insta feed is bombarded by people telling me not to get light vs those prophesising the way of the broccoli. I suspect this is partly driven by what it considered both cool and acceptable to say on social media, partly by some realisation that relentless dieting is actually bad for performance long term, and partly by the new comp style which rewards leg power in a way that old-school crimping doesn't. I probably wouldn't dare "speak up" for dropping a few kgs on insta, despite not being afraid of an online scrap.
But I think there are potentially a whole range of unhealthy behaviours in lots of sports that are just accepted, rightly or wrongly
With the caveat that I know very little about this, I have a strong suspicion that both the "enjoying the pain" part of training, lifting etc and the feeling you get out soloing has some underlying crossovers with drivers for self-harm (e.g. "Self-harm proved to me I was real, I was alive. At times it also silenced the chaos in my head" - https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/self-harm/why-people-self-harm/). I suspect for some (many?) that sport, training, soloing etc are like the opposite of a gateway drug - it's what stops you passing through the gateway into worse stuff, but doesn't mean you don't still channel some of that underlying feeling into unhealthy actions and thoughts. I may just be projecting my current mental state onto other times and people here though.
'feeling floaty' - 'lost a kilo or two and climbing well' etc..
At the risk of being the old prick in the corner complaining about people being PC and voting for UKIP, if saying things like that become considered unacceptable on the forum then count me out of here. The second is, after all, a factual statement with causality left to our best guesses.
Frequent injury occurrence
Can happen without eating disorders. I can name a few "bigger" blokes who have as many injury problems as the dieters. That's not me arguing that eating can't cause injury problems - it can - but I'd be surprised if the idea that you can use injury issues as a reliable marker of an underlying hormonal issue or eating disorder would stand up to much scrutiny. [Relevant n=1 anecdotes: after the talk about REDs at Awesome Walls a year or two back, and given my history of flip-flopping weight and injuries, I had my bloods done while in diet mode; testosterone etc was all normal... which doesn't demonstrate that none of my injuries are due to dieting, but puts a minor indicator against. I've injured myself whilst heavy, medium and light... but never whilst in light-light mode. It's almost like other things are key in determining injury too.]
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Kai Lightner's coaching telling him he will never be good because he is too heavy, l
This is obviously dumb and unacceptable
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I look around and see a lot of unhealthy climbers. Maybe I’ve spent too much time at The Foundry?! It’s just accepted, especially amongst men.
Genuine question. What visible signs are you judging these climbers to be unhealthy by?
Very low body fat percentage. Frequent references to dieting/unhealthy diet and undereating. References to other’s body shape. Frequent injury occurrence. Desire for peer recognition of low body fat (‘tops off for power’ etc)
Okay, so more what they say and do rather than just what you see.
Some of the healthiest people I know are also objectively 'skinny'. I've met people with very low weight who seem to eat more than the average. Metabolisms are highly variable and I suspect some of the prevalence of thinness in hard climbers is because a 'naturally' thin physique is beneficial for power to weight ratio so is overrepresented near the top. None of which is to suggest there isn't a problem, especially at elite comp level, with disordered eating. There is, most of us have heard various anecdotes, or know of affected individuals. I'd just say that it's important we don't stigmatise body shape at either end of the scale. Judging based on under weight appearance is no better than judging based on over weight appearance.
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I'd just say that it's important we don't stigmatise body shape at either end of the scale. Judging based on under weight appearance is no better than judging based on over weight appearance.
Hear that from your fellow moderator, @Shark and @Duncan Disorderly??? And that includes not huffing like a contrary teenager when someone admonishes you for slagging off someone's personal appearance in a serious online debate.
Also talking of both ends of the scale....
You may ask how much does 10lb matter? Well imagine projecting at your limit with an extra 10lbs!
A mere 4.5kg, pissing hell that would be nice :lol: :lol: :lol:
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A surprising amount of resistance to the idea that climbing and eating disorders might have some crossover, which surprises me. The connection seems quite obvious to me and has been under the surface of climbing for years. We've all heard rumours about someone or other I'm sure.
Interested in why this is prompting such pushback. There are a lot of comments here that come across as pretty defensive; lots of 'not all men are like that' kind of energy! Is it not enough to raise awareness of the risks that climbing might pose to a healthy relationship with food? If you don't think it applies to you, thats great, but I think you'd have to be blind not to see the potential risk to young climbers, and young female climbers in particular. This piece is very good on that issue.
https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/ukc/growing_pains_-_the_weight_of_womanhood-688324
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A surprising amount of resistance to the idea that climbing and eating disorders might have some crossover, which surprises me.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that. Sounds like you're falling into the trap of thinking that you're not allowed to have actual discussion around touchy subjects...
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A surprising amount of resistance to the idea that climbing and eating disorders might have some crossover, which surprises me.
I have seen none at all?
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I don't think anyone is suggesting that. Sounds like you're falling into the trap of thinking that you're not allowed to have actual discussion around touchy subjects...
Paraphrasing:
'other sports are unusual as well'
'normal isn't healthy anyway'
'projecting eating disorder issues onto everything she sees'
'but climbing has made loads of people healthy'
'climbers are much healthier than the general population'
'heavier climbers get injured too'
'loads of healthy people are skinny'
Clearly I have stripped the context from the above but I still think its interesting that these are the first responses of people. To me, they come across as pretty defensive. YMMV but to me, that indicates part of the problem as it currently exists; the sport is yet to fully confront it and instead puts its head in the sand.
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Desire for peer recognition of low body fat (‘tops off for power’ etc)
Tops off for power magic still works when no one is around - even when you aren’t recording
Very few if any 50 year old men should take off there tops in public, many should also think about it in private.
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To me, they come across as pretty defensive. YMMV but to me, that indicates part of the problem as it currently exists; the sport is yet to fully confront it and instead puts its head in the sand.
To me 6/7 come across as either factually correct or likely to be factually correct (hadn't clocked 'projecting eating disorder issues onto everything she sees'), and as being relevant to the conversation. They probably do also read as defensive, but that neither makes them wrong nor less relevant nor implies your conclusion IMO. And yes, stripping context and caveats makes things easy to attack, I use that trick too.
p.s. if anyone feels like there's a lack of awareness around this in climbing I guess they don't follow the same insta accounts or listen to the same podcasts as me, so this may also affect how much people respond wholly positively or critically to people's comments in this area.
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Desire for peer recognition of low body fat (‘tops off for power’ etc)
Tops off for power magic still works when no one is around - even when you aren’t recording
Very few if any 50 year old men should take off there tops in public, many should also think about it in private.
Shark has just started a face book group for 50+ year old climbers to do this online....
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To me, they come across as pretty defensive. YMMV but to me, that indicates part of the problem as it currently exists; the sport is yet to fully confront it and instead puts its head in the sand.
To me 6/7 come across as either factually correct or likely to be factually correct (hadn't clocked 'projecting eating disorder issues onto everything she sees'), and as being relevant to the conversation. They probably do also read as defensive, but that neither makes them wrong nor less relevant nor implies your conclusion IMO. And yes, stripping context and caveats makes things easy to attack, I use that trick too.
p.s. if anyone feels like there's a lack of awareness around this in climbing I guess they don't follow the same insta accounts or listen to the same podcasts as me, so this may also affect how much people respond wholly positively or critically to people's comments in this area.
I neither have instagram nor listen to climbing podcasts so I accept I may be out of the loop!
How people frame their response to issues is relevant isnt it. If someone responds to an article about 1500 corona deaths with a statistic about flu deaths in a year, you can draw a reasonable assumption about their views on lockdown. Clearly these points of view aren't comparable, but I don't think its unreasonable to point out that quite a few of the responses to this topic have been dominated by caveats or some form of 'what aboutery.' You're right that this is still interesting and (mostly) relevant, but it still says something about the primacy of the issue in peoples minds.
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Very few if any 50 year old men should take off there tops in public, many should also think about it in private.
Shark has just started a face book group for 50+ year old climbers to do this online....
Maybe we should do a calendar at the end of the year
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Through the late ‘80s and ‘90s low body weight was promoted as the ideal.
I think, at least initially, there was simply a void in terms of training knowledge and training facilities. In that context, losing weight was an obvious and relatively "easy" (in the short term) path to improving performance, particularly because as a strategy it was well suited to the cutting edge routes of the day. But it did become a kind of ideal, and in a way that became deeply problematic for some people. There must still be a thread of that running through climbing culture.
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I don't think anyone is suggesting that. Sounds like you're falling into the trap of thinking that you're not allowed to have actual discussion around touchy subjects...
Paraphrasing:
'other sports are unusual as well'
'normal isn't healthy anyway'
'projecting eating disorder issues onto everything she sees'
'but climbing has made loads of people healthy'
'climbers are much healthier than the general population'
'heavier climbers get injured too'
'loads of healthy people are skinny'
Clearly I have stripped the context from the above but I still think its interesting that these are the first responses of people. To me, they come across as pretty defensive. YMMV but to me, that indicates part of the problem as it currently exists; the sport is yet to fully confront it and instead puts its head in the sand.
I'll let other posters address their own decontextualized excerpt. But regards the bottom one, which looks to be taken from a post of mine, the context is in no way 'pushing back' against the idea EDs are an issue in climbing, in fact I stated that they are within the same post.
Really, this is a discussion site and I was making a specific cautionary point regards unintended stigmatisation, which I stand by. I think the fact that this makes you think I have my 'head in the sand' about the subject says more about you than me. Please come back with a counter argument if you disagree on the point I was making. But please don't try to package it up with some discussion blocking dismissive jargon. I really don't feel there is a conversation on any subject if everyone just says 'yay that was great', rather than explore the inevitable caveats, exceptions, issues of perception and unintended consequence which exist in complex social topics such as this.
For reference, the above rant is what a defensive post looks like. :kiss2:
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To me, they come across as pretty defensive. YMMV but to me, that indicates part of the problem as it currently exists; the sport is yet to fully confront it and instead puts its head in the sand.
To me 6/7 come across as either factually correct or likely to be factually correct (hadn't clocked 'projecting eating disorder issues onto everything she sees'), and as being relevant to the conversation. They probably do also read as defensive, but that neither makes them wrong nor less relevant nor implies your conclusion IMO. And yes, stripping context and caveats makes things easy to attack, I use that trick too.
p.s. if anyone feels like there's a lack of awareness around this in climbing I guess they don't follow the same insta accounts or listen to the same podcasts as me, so this may also affect how much people respond wholly positively or critically to people's comments in this area.
I neither have instagram nor listen to climbing podcasts so I accept I may be out of the loop!
How people frame their response to issues is relevant isnt it. If someone responds to an article about 1500 corona deaths with a statistic about flu deaths in a year, you can draw a reasonable assumption about their views on lockdown. Clearly these points of view aren't comparable, but I don't think its unreasonable to point out that quite a few of the responses to this topic have been dominated by caveats or some form of 'what aboutery.' You're right that this is still interesting and (mostly) relevant, but it still says something about the primacy of the issue in peoples minds.
Don't get me started on 'what aboutary'. Probably the most egregious bit of debate avoidance jargon du jour IMO.
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I don't think its unreasonable to point out that quite a few of the responses to this topic have been dominated by caveats or some form of 'what aboutery.'
I don't really disagree with this, although it's probably what you'd expect. People critique bits that they think are missing or erroneous in others' posts, not the good bits on the whole. I don't think you'd find anyone who thinks that there isn't a crossover between eating issues and climbing, and I would stand by the view that it doesn't support the statement about "resistance to the idea that climbing and eating disorders might have some crossover". Maybe it's just semantics. I suspect a lot of this is how much discussion you've seen elsewhere as I alluded to - if you see this as shining a light into a dark corner then your main take away is "look at all the skeletons"; if you feel like it's a fairly well lit corner of the room then you're more likely to respond with the observation that some of the bones are from a skeleton dummy, as well as the human ones. I'm struggling with the analogy here, but sure you know what I mean.
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Edit: I think things have moved on since I wrote this. TL:DR is that the incidence of climbing-related ED's is probably not very well understood, and it's not as simple as pointing to Malham and saying "look at all the skinny people". If you think that a climbing-induced eating disorder will manifest as a skinny person then you're wrong.
I'm not sure anyone is denying that there exist some really nasty eating disorders in climbing, which have been brought about by climbing. But the scale of the problem across climbing? I'd say we have very little idea. It's very difficult to tell who has an eating disorder unless you overhear them say very specific things about their attitude towards food. An eating disorder is when you have an unhealthy attitude towards food, which can include obsessing over what you eat and what that does to your body.
It's not unusual for keen climbers who are trying to maximise performance to be mindful of how much they weigh. Their attitudes might range from desperately trying to lose weight all the time, to cutting a little weight for Sendtember, to not snacking or eating refined sugar in a bid to avoid excess weight above what might be their healthy norm. Within that spectrum you've got behaviours which clearly are disorderly and behaviours which probably aren't. In most cases you wouldn't be able to tell who had a disorder and who didn't just by looking at them.
Case in point. Of all my friends, I can think of one who is the most likely to have an eating disorder. He is of average height and average build. If you offer him a spare choccy bar from your bag at the end of the day he will refuse. "Empty calories, mate". He watches what he eats and tries not to exceed what he perceives to be the amount of food that keeps his weight in equilibrium. If you were to stand us next to each other and ask the panel "who has the eating disorder", all fingers would point to me. I can assure you in the most certain terms that I do not have an eating disorder. Is my friend's behaviour obsessive? Probably. Might somebody say he has an eating disorder if they overheard our conversation at the crag? Maybe. Is it unhealthy (the definition of an eating disorder)? Without getting him to lie down on the metaphorical couch and describe in detail how his eating and his weight affect his emotions you just can't tell.
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That certainly was defensive! :o
As it happens, I don't disagree with large parts of your post. I certainly didn't mean to be dismissive (I don't think I was!) or imply that you specifically have your head in the sand, although I accept that by paraphrasing I'm making a rod for my own back.
I would maintain though, that when a thread is started on a topic like this, and a large proportion of the responses carry caveats, that that says something interesting about attitudes to the topic. You clearly don't agree, which is fine, but thats the point I'm making. I think there is an instinctive reluctance in climbing to truly confront the issue, for all sorts of reasons; love of the sport and desire to 'defend' it, misunderstanding of eating disorders and how they affect people, perhaps a belief (still widespread among the gen pop) that eating disorders aren't a 'real' condition, a long standing belief that weight loss is a good tactic for hard climbing that has endured since the 80s and is part of a culture that a lot of climbers still hold very dear.
I am NOT saying you hold any of the above views or being remotely accusatory. I am suggesting that such views are widespread and that some of the caveats being (repeatedly) brought up in this thread are evidence of that.
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I neither have instagram nor listen to climbing podcasts so I accept I may be out of the loop!
I guess i'm relatively new to climbing (4 or 5 years or so), so I don't know enough about old broccoli diet's, but I do have Instagram and have listened to climbing podcasts. All I see on Instagram are muscle-bound climbers performing incredible feats of strength, topless. I concede this could be equally damaging to some people. For example, in gym circles this imagery leads many people to steroids. Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of the top climbers were using PED's :worms: But I certainly don't see unhealthy low weight being promoted for climbing on the internet.
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Having reflected on the film a few personal thoughts.
Can only speak for myself but body composition is one performance subset of my obsession to be the best climber I can. Other subsets include fingerboarding, blancos, siege tactics etc.
I weigh myself every day to keep a check and get a weekly average. Typically I only very gradually lose or gain weight which is matter of public record on Power Club.
It’s only in the last few years that I’ve got my weight/fat level down seasonally to a level that would I think be unhealthy if I kept it at that level long term rather than to coincide with attempting to redpoint the Oak.
I have a feel for the level that’s unhealthy for me as once I reach or dip below 11 stone I start to feel a bit weird mentally and physically after a few weeks by which stage I’ll almost certainly be burnt out or conditions will have crapped out so happy to start putting weight back on to get back to a sustainable level. Personally I’m comfortable with this approach.
I’ve also had a few weigh ins over the years on the Collegiate body comp machine so have a reasonable handle on where my fat % is which seems to be the most reliable marker on how far you can push personal weight loss.
Also training to get strength gains whilst underweight is going to be compromised so apart from the myriad other issues I think you are shooting yourself in the foot keeping your weight permanently low if the reason is to perform well.
Like I say I can only speak for myself. I’m naturally a chunkier body type and a constant struggle to get or keep my weight where I want it to be at any particular time. Other people have different metabolisms and body types.
Whether my approach is appropriate, unhealthy or fucked up depends on your own view but Im sure it’s not pathological in the way described in the film by the interviewed climbers.
However, if tracking my weight on Power Club or talking about my approach to weight in the way I have above is triggering or part of an insidious community groupthink I’m quite happy to keep such things to myself.
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I guess i'm relatively new to climbing (4 or 5 years or so), so I don't know enough about old broccoli diet's, but I do have Instagram and have listened to climbing podcasts. All I see on Instagram are muscle-bound climbers performing incredible feats of strength, topless. I concede this could be equally damaging to some people. For example, in gym circles this imagery leads many people to steroids. Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of the top climbers were using PED's :worms: But I certainly don't see unhealthy low weight being promoted for climbing on the internet.
I think there’s a slight false equivalence here: someone being muscle bound does not mean that they do not suffer from disordered eating, in fact someone with a low body fat percentage is likely to be keeping a v close eye on what they eat, and therefore be at risk of slipping into damaging habits (unless of course they are one of Bonjoy’s fortunate friends with a high metabolic rate). As such I don’t think looking at someone on insta and saying ‘they must be healthy they have muscles’ is useful.
Likewise earlier BMI was brought up. This is a fairly useless measure on an individual scale in the general population, and almost completely useless for athletic physiques.
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A surprising amount of resistance to the idea that climbing and eating disorders might have some crossover, which surprises me. The connection seems quite obvious to me and has been under the surface of climbing for years. We've all heard rumours about someone or other I'm sure.
Interested in why this is prompting such pushback. There are a lot of comments here that come across as pretty defensive; lots of 'not all men are like that' kind of energy! Is it not enough to raise awareness of the risks that climbing might pose to a healthy relationship with food? If you don't think it applies to you, thats great, but I think you'd have to be blind not to see the potential risk to young climbers, and young female climbers in particular. This piece is very good on that issue.
https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/ukc/growing_pains_-_the_weight_of_womanhood-688324
Strange that you see any resistance to the idea of crossover in the discussion that has taken place. I see lots of acceptance that there is likely to be crossover. The discussion to me centres around how much of an issue it is in climbing. I also don’t read anything particularly defensive - certainly I don’t feel defensive myself. I just disagree on the extent and the idea that climbing has a major problem here.
I think it is (as an earlier poster has mentioned) that it’s important to be able to discuss topics such as this without being accused of putting our heads in the sand. I have a different opinion to you and others but am happy to debate it. I also acknowledge that eating disorders are likely to be an issue for some climbers, most likely those who are young or excel but by no means only those. I just don’t think it is as big an issue as the film made it out to be.
I think you also (in a later post) mention my comment of her projecting her issues. I can’t really see much doubt that she does a whole load of projecting of her own issues with eating and body image all the way through the film and in a few instances I found it quite bizarre the way she described situations.
Dave
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Likewise earlier BMI was brought up. This is a fairly useless measure on an individual scale in the general population, and almost completely useless for athletic physiques.
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Happy to be corrected here but I thought that the issues with BMI are mainly when interpreting a heavily muscled guy of say 14 stone low body fat and only 5 foot 8. A basic BMI calculation will look like they are overweight or obese. However when looking at whether someone is underweight BMI is likely to be a reasonable guide.
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Having reflected on the film a few personal thoughts.
Can only speak for myself but body composition is one performance subset of my obsession to be the best climber I can. Other subsets include fingerboarding, blancos, siege tactics etc.
I weigh myself every day to keep a check and get a weekly average. Typically I only very gradually lose or gain weight which is matter of public record on Power Club.
It’s only in the last few years that I’ve got my weight/fat level down seasonally to a level that would I think be unhealthy if I kept it at that level long term rather than to coincide with attempting to redpoint the Oak.
I have a feel for the level that’s unhealthy for me as once I reach or dip below 11 stone I start to feel a bit weird mentally and physically after a few weeks by which stage I’ll almost certainly be burnt out or conditions will have crapped out so happy to start putting weight back on to get back to a sustainable level. Personally I’m comfortable with this approach.
I’ve also had a few weigh ins over the years on the Collegiate body comp machine so have a reasonable handle on where my fat % is which seems to be the most reliable marker on how far you can push personal weight loss.
Also training to get strength gains whilst underweight is going to be compromised so apart from the myriad other issues I think you are shooting yourself in the foot keeping your weight permanently low if the reason is to perform well.
Like I say I can only speak for myself. I’m naturally a chunkier body type and a constant struggle to get or keep my weight where I want it to be at any particular time. Other people have different metabolisms and body types.
Whether my approach is appropriate, unhealthy or fucked up depends on your own view but Im sure it’s not pathological in the way described in the film by the interviewed climbers.
However, if tracking my weight on Power Club or talking about my approach to weight in the way I have above is triggering or part of an insidious community groupthink I’m quite happy to keep such things to myself.
All you describe sounds pretty reasonable to me. I don’t weigh myself anywhere near that often but also keep an eye on my weight and manipulate it through the year. I don’t feel that my attitudes or feelings about weight even come close to pathology and as far as I’m concerned yours don’t either. However I do understand that for some people entering the sport who might have a tendency towards an eating disorder it would be difficult to not take away the idea that if you lose weight and stay light you will climb well.
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Happy to be corrected here but I thought that the issues with BMI are mainly when interpreting a heavily muscled guy of say 14 stone low body fat and only 5 foot 8. A basic BMI calculation will look like they are overweight or obese. However when looking at whether someone is underweight BMI is likely to be a reasonable guide.
You can see how the same issues that make this extreme case inaccurate filter through BMI measures, with a few KG of additional muscle but a v low body fat percentage bumping someone out of ‘underweight’ into ‘normal’.
This is off topic, as being a particular weight or having a particular body fat percentage does not mean a person does not have an issue with eating, but as Shark has alluded to, IMO body fat percentage is a better measure for sportspeople.
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I’m naturally a chunkier body type
I'm intrigued to know what you're characterising as "chunkier" and when the last time you might have been "chunky" was. I ask because you've been playing the game for so long and, as far as I can remember, you've been of a fairly consistent build. Is it possible that you've lost sight of what your normal is if you feel like you're in a constant struggle to keep your weight down?
I have to say that there's some eyebrow-raisers in your post. For the sake of argument, let's say that you had an eating disorder. Is it possible that you've had it for so long that this behaviour has become normalised?
I'm not a professional or mental health specialist in any way. Apologies if those questions are overly intrusive or unwelcome. Your post just intrigued me.
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I would maintain though, that when a thread is started on a topic like this, and a large proportion of the responses carry caveats, that that says something interesting about attitudes to the topic.
or.. it says that the topic of weight in weight-dependent sports is nuanced :shrug:
a long standing belief that weight loss is a good tactic for hard climbing
You say this like it's definitively untrue or a misconception, but again it's nuanced. Weight loss has pros (immediate performance) and cons (potential health impacts, especially long term; potential mental impact; potential performance impact of those two things in the longer term). Ignoring the fact that climbers are trying to find a balance around this and just saying "weight loss is bad, don't do weight loss kids" is the burying your head in the sand IMO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeprIqxrDQo
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a long standing belief that weight loss is a good the best tactic for hard climbing
The above is a better reflection of my point.
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I’m naturally a chunkier body type
I'm intrigued to know what you're characterising as "chunkier"
I'm more intrigued to know how he can get away with spouting an outright lie like that...
...oh. Maybe in a sports community that is ridden with body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and a lack of balanced perspective.
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That certainly was defensive! :o
As it happens, I don't disagree with large parts of your post. I certainly didn't mean to be dismissive (I don't think I was!) or imply that you specifically have your head in the sand, although I accept that by paraphrasing I'm making a rod for my own back....
Kneejerk Defensive Disorder, I've been a sufferer of KDD for quite some time now. ::)
I know you weren't particularly attributing any position to me. Beware of quoting KDD types in rhetoric is all I can say.
FWIW I'm coming at this from the perspective outlined by Barrows earlier. I know of instances of EDs in climbing and assume this to be the tip of an iceberg of unknown proportion and I kind of assumed this was where most other informed posters on here would be coming from.
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I’m naturally a chunkier body type
I'm intrigued to know what you're characterising as "chunkier"
I'm more intrigued to know how he can get away with spouting an outright lie like that...
...oh. Maybe in a sports community that is ridden with body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and a lack of balanced perspective.
Reel your neck in. I’m not chunky now but I used to be generally more muscley and not what you’d call lean. At Uni I had the nickname Walrus for a short while.
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The thing is, for many people, weight loss is the best short term tactic for hard climbing. Climbing is unavoidably a power-to-weight dependent sport.
I thought the film was really useful and important. It should be essential viewing for any young sport climber and their parents.
It didn't offer much in the way of solutions, but then it doesn't have to. What it did demonstrate quite clearly is that - for some - climbing can be a pretty toxic environment. I was struck by Angie Payne's reaction to two male climbers having what I would consider to be a pretty normal and innocuous conversation about their weight and their performance.
It was obvious to me from this segment that what many of us accept as normal can be extremely difficult for some climbers.
What to do about this is the hard question of course. IMO it's unrealistic to expect people not to be weight conscious in a sport like climbing. Pretending that weight isn't a factor in performance is fashionable right now, but as a solution to the problem I think it is likely to fail as it disagrees with the obvious reality, and people can see that.
Setting expectations that people watch their language about the topic in public is an option, but I worry it would drive conversation about the topic behind close doors, which is arguably worse.
The ideal I would like to see is a culture where we were open and frank about the pros and cons of weight loss for climbing performance. I don't think we are far from that now.
But a caveat of that is that if we allow open conversations about weight loss, we need to be aware that some people won't be able to cope like this. As Angie Payne said "I can't just lose 5lbs and then stop". We also need to have a culture where people can admit they have issues around weight without stigma, and feel comfortable asking people to change the subject.
I don't know how we get there, and don't know what to do until we do.
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This is a complicated subject and one where I have had close personal contact with a couple of cases of significant eating disorders in young sports women (one a climber, one a runner/cyclist). I posted when this previously came up on the Angy Eiter thread:
https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,28449.msg623624.html#msg623624
I've followed this thread, and one on UKC, they both share some similarities and for me do lack a bit of empathy and understanding. Eating disorders are can be significant mental (and physical) illnesses with complex mutli-faceted causes and I'm sure there isn't a simple correlation between climbing (or other sports) and EDs however that doesn't mean we don't need to be more aware of them and what we can do to help/
A fair number of posts here are from people talking about managing their weight without issues - well of course they do , plenty of people drink alcohol without issues or have a bad day without suffering from depression! I think there is still a significant stigma around EDs and people talking about them more openly without the need for these sort of 'defensive' posts would be more helpful approach I think. For me there seems to be really different tone to this thread compared to for example the black dog one which do find disappointing (I know they have slightly different context but think the point still stands).
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Basically all media I see focuses on building strength over losing weight, how weight loss is only a short term solution etc etc so it would be easy to see that and think the community is doing a good job of tackling the issue.
From my experience it's usually newer climbers, often those who are overly strong already, coming from a regular gym background who in conversation sound like they have some level of unhealthy attitudes to food and weight. These are the same people who buy way too tight downturned shoes despite most high level climbers and media saying that like under eating that it's a thing from the past (and like losing weight may be applicable in some circumstances).
I think it takes a lot longer for these messages to get down to that level where they may not be a part of the larger climbing community and only get information from other climbers at a similar or slightly higher level.
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Kyra Condie has an interesting vid on her IG stories on this atm.
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The thing is, for many people, weight loss is the best short term tactic for hard climbing. Climbing is unavoidably a power-to-weight dependent sport.
I thought the film was really useful and important. It should be essential viewing for any young sport climber and their parents.
It didn't offer much in the way of solutions, but then it doesn't have to. What it did demonstrate quite clearly is that - for some - climbing can be a pretty toxic environment. I was struck by Angie Payne's reaction to two male climbers having what I would consider to be a pretty normal and innocuous conversation about their weight and their performance.
It was obvious to me from this segment that what many of us accept as normal can be extremely difficult for some climbers.
What to do about this is the hard question of course. IMO it's unrealistic to expect people not to be weight conscious in a sport like climbing. Pretending that weight isn't a factor in performance is fashionable right now, but as a solution to the problem I think it is likely to fail as it disagrees with the obvious reality, and people can see that.
Setting expectations that people watch their language about the topic in public is an option, but I worry it would drive conversation about the topic behind close doors, which is arguably worse.
The ideal I would like to see is a culture where we were open and frank about the pros and cons of weight loss for climbing performance. I don't think we are far from that now.
But a caveat of that is that if we allow open conversations about weight loss, we need to be aware that some people won't be able to cope like this. As Angie Payne said "I can't just lose 5lbs and then stop". We also need to have a culture where people can admit they have issues around weight without stigma, and feel comfortable asking people to change the subject.
I don't know how we get there, and don't know what to do until we do.
Couldn’t agree more with all of this
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My take, as someone with long term metabolic issues (thyroid related) who has spent quite a lot of time with high performance climbers is some of the key messaging in this excellent film seems to be being being lost in rigidity of thinking. The playful, creative and explorative mammal is the ideal to me, with no constantly negative internal voice. I think people should test themselves against that, as addictive problems can extend beyond eating disorders (and metabolisms do differ so body shape should not be the only factor). I think the silence around damaging behaviours needs to end and more climbers need to recognise warning signs so they can help their friends. The Black Dog thread here is a classic exemplar to me.
I'd also caution Will that there is such a thing as empty calories... really shitty sugar packed food and drink that pretty much everyone should avoid in anything more than tiny doses. We are better being aware and open to help, than adding labels to people.
If the tops off 50s calendar happens, for people who still challenge themselves, I compete in fun comps and take on things at my limit despite my paunch. It's joyful to problem solve and achieve and occasionally almost spiritual to flow when focussed on something challenging. I'm delighted the top three super vets at The Unit win beer.
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Climbing attracts people from all walks of life, but a common trait of 'really good' climbers is the ability to try very hard. If you turn that determined focus towards getting light, it's easy to see how you could end up doggedly sticking to a dangerously restrictive eating pattern even when your body is giving out alarm signals that other people would pay attention to.
The issue is, as has been pointed out by others on this thread, that you can't climb as hard if you are too heavy. The trick is to find the balance. Angie Payne and Emily Harrington both still are by anyone's standards slim, in fact they don't look vastly different now than when they were struggling with their ED's in the earlier footage. The difference is that they are healthy now.
In my mind, the answer would be accepting that elite athletes are going to be keen to keep their weight at the right level for performing well, and educating them, especially youngsters, to give them knowledge about nutrition for longevity. Let's face it, we mostly just want to climb as hard as we can - realising that scientifically proven, healthy, nutritious eating habits will help us to achieve that goal far better than simply being stick thin gives us something useful to focus our obsessive personalities on! Obviously, this is for those whose driving force for dieting is to climb better, rather than those who have clinical ED's separate from the sporting sphere (yes, I know there is a lot of overlap).
For what it's worth, I reckon this is just as big an issue for male climbers as female from my experience.
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A fair number of posts here are from people talking about managing their weight without issues - well of course they do , plenty of people drink alcohol without issues or have a bad day without suffering from depression! I think there is still a significant stigma around EDs and people talking about them more openly without the need for these sort of 'defensive' posts would be more helpful approach I think. For me there seems to be really different tone to this thread compared to for example the black dog one which do find disappointing (I know they have slightly different context but think the point still stands).
Wasn't sure whether to post more on this, but here goes.
Finally got round to watching the documentary this morning - would say I hadn't found time, but in actuality I was probably putting it off somewhat.
I thought it was an excellent documentary, very brave and harrowing at times, for me personally it was also pretty raw having been very close over the last couple of years to a similar situation with my daughter. Having watched the film, I don't think that ' disappointing ' is quite adequate to describe how I feel about the overall feel of this thread. I don't want to pick on individual posts but feel there is a lot of defensiveness where I would hope that the first thought that most people would take from the film was some sort of understanding/empathy for the traumatic experiences the people featured had been through.
A few thoughts:
- An eating disorder is not just following a strict (or even extreme) diet, it is mental illness first and foremost involving obsessive behaviours and intrusive thoughts around food, body image, exercise etc. It is also not necessarily always associated with being 'ridiculously skinny’ or other stereotypes and can't always be judged from external appearances.
- Of course plenty of climbers (and other athletes) can managed weight and perform to a high standard without developing EDs. This doesn't diminish the fact the people featured had developed significant EDs and felt that the culture within climbing was not helpful both in dealing with this or allowing them to discuss their problems openly. Does anyone really believe that there are not many other people in climbing also having problems? A cursory look around the internet/Instagram should be enough to refute that view.
- Recovery from EDs can be slow and difficult. Angie Payne was quite clear in the film that she was not 'cured', hopefully her recovery will continue and her openness and bravery can help (and for the rest of the people involved in the film).
- I believe EDs still have significant misunderstandings and stigma around them. Together with the fact that many sufferers internalise feelings of guilt and poor self image they can be very difficult to discuss openly - one of the most important positives that could come out this film and discussions like this is to break down this stigma and increase openess within the climbing community to the issue.
To finish more positively, my daughter is aware I'm posting this and is in a much better place though still very much 'in recovery'. She's pretty sure the roots of her problems originated prior to taking up climbing but it took her some time to recognise that climbing really wasn't helping. The below quote is from her instagram at start of this year:
'2020 gave me, despite how shit it was in so many ways, the chance to recover from a restrictive eating disorder after 2 years, and regain my real love for climbing. I can now look back and see how far I’ve come, I can love my body for what it lets me do regardless of how I think it looks. I eat for enjoyment, fuel, happiness, and can again do this with the people closest to me.
It was hard to recover while still climbing. I felt the pressure to be skinny, I got complimented on my weight loss, I was scared to lose this; but with lockdown in March I realised how wrong this was. Gaining weight, food freedom and more love for my body has meant I’m the strongest and happiest (while climbing and in day to day life) I’ve ever been.
Please do not be afraid to talk, to ask for help. You deserve to recover, to love yourself and feel happy and free to enjoy life. '
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Wasn't sure whether to post more on this, but here goes.
I'm so glad you did post that Ian, thank you very much. It very clearly summises my thoughts in a way I couldn't express!
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Great post Ian. Thanks for sharing.
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I'm so glad you did post that Ian, thank you very much. It very clearly summises my thoughts in a way I couldn't express!
Thanks Andy (and TT), comments appreciated. Also those who commented privately.
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The thing is, for many people, weight loss is the best short term tactic for hard climbing. Climbing is unavoidably a power-to-weight dependent sport.
I really think that statement needs some caveats Stu. This post will be here for years, you're posting under your real name and only a moments googling will be required to confirm that you are on paper perhaps the best sport climber regularly posting on the forum, with one of the hardest ticks in the country. So the statement will be taken seriously.
Presumably you mean to say that for an experienced adult sport climber climbing at very high grades and looking to achieve a lifetime hardest tick that weight loss will typically - perhaps necessarily - be part of the strategy for redpoint success. But I assume it is a tactic to adopt when pretty much all the gains from other tactics have been maxed out, and you are operating at the limit of injury.
Because that's absolutely not what you've written. You can't take all the other stuff as a given.
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The thing is, for many people, weight loss is the best short term tactic for hard climbing. Climbing is unavoidably a power-to-weight dependent sport.
I really think that statement needs some caveats Stu. This post will be here for years, you're posting under your real name and only a moments googling will be required to confirm that you are on paper perhaps the best sport climber regularly posting on the forum, with one of the hardest ticks in the country. So the statement will be taken seriously.
Presumably you mean to say that for an experienced adult sport climber climbing at very high grades and looking to achieve a lifetime hardest tick that weight loss will typically - perhaps necessarily - be part of the strategy for redpoint success. But I assume it is a tactic to adopt when pretty much all the gains from other tactics have been maxed out, and you are operating at the limit of injury.
Because that's absolutely not what you've written. You can't take all the other stuff as a given.
This is clearly all true and shows how difficult this area is. From reading Stu’s post I personally did take all the other stuff you describe as a given whereas I take your point that someone new to the sport may well not understand all the caveats that you describe and instead take it to mean that weight loss is the best route to an increase in performance.
Dave
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it is a tactic to adopt when pretty much all the gains from other tactics have been maxed out,
I'd probably drop it into the toolkit slightly earlier than you suggest, i.e. for a few of your "top" performances not just one, but would broadly agree. Certainly I'd agree that a teen or 20-something would be best not going down that route, and certainly not extensively - leave it for when you can't just come back in a year or two knowing you'll be better/stronger by then. I suspect I've made errors in the past on this front.
To some extent this is why I don't like it when it seems like people try to shut down or somewhat shame those engaging in critical discussion - I think you need that discussion to convince people it's a trick for near the bottom of the "things to try" list not the top. Otherwise it's just a "don't do drugs because they're bad, and don't ask questions" vibe, which I think a motivated performance-focused climber might find rather unconvincing. I know I would. Perhaps this is just a problem with separating "screwing up by dieting" vs "eating disorders", which are very different but also quite hard to really separate out due to the overlaps...
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i.e. for a few of your "top" performances not just one, but would broadly agree.
I'd hoped that would be implied by the fact that you won't know the top one until your career is over, so yes for pushing your grade limit, which might happen several times.
But my point is while most might diet to climb 9a, nobody should need to diet to climb 8a.
The problem being if its widely known that climbing 9a involves dieting, people will assume it is a short cut to climb 7a.
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This "shortcut to success" is definitely where the peril and risk of developing disordered eating lies.
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With no personal experience of this, and happy to be corrected, is this potentially similar to other situations in life where people with pre-dispositions to mental illness become more susceptible to suffering in particular environments. For instance, alcoholics may stay away from pubs, gambling addicts avoid casinos. I probably have more personal experience with these two. So thinking in this way, we don't want people with susceptibility to EDs to have to stay away from climbing gyms, the emphasis might be, as a solution, on ways we can collectively make those environments safer for those individuals.
I don't want this to become about limiting speech or anything, but if I suggest a holiday with friends, I'll probably avoid suggesting Vegas.
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I don't drink any more but I'm happy to go to a pub where the enviroment and culture doesn't make me feel like I need to drink to be in that space.
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Fair enough, I think thats interesting - I know people who feel the same.
I know some who have to abstain completely
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nobody should need to diet to climb 8a.
7a and i'd agree, but considering that 99% of the climbing population will never climb 8a, I think that's a pretty high level to climb without having any consideration of your weight. If you're already light or still growing then this obviously doesn't apply, but most people aren't already light as bodyweight vaguely follows a Normal distribution / bell curve, but is skewed towards the heavy side.
If I don't watch my diet I trend up to 15 stone, but by watching it, which is to say dieting but still eating more than the average person, I can comfortably hover just over 13 stone and feel healthier and better for doing so (still only climbing a mere 7c). I am of average weight too so not unusual.
I really do sympathise with anyone who develops an ED, particularly if that's in any part due to climbing culture. This is why diet needs to be an open conversation as others have posted.
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With no personal experience of this, and happy to be corrected, is this potentially similar to other situations in life where people with pre-dispositions to mental illness become more susceptible to suffering in particular environments.
That may be also be the case but the film is mainly focused on top athletes who for the most part will do anything that they perceive will improve their performance even if it is harmful to their health.
This was linked on the UKB Facebook page and is a clear demonstration that Olympic level sport is almost by definition very unhealthy.
https://vimeo.com/51345348
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Ah good point, yes if we are speaking strictly about top athletes - I guess physical/mental damage to achieve a 99th percentile performance is certainly not new. I'm sure there's reference to something similar in one of the many Lance Armstrong docs about how cycling the mountains in the south of France is just not good for the human body (caveat that they are doing 50kmh on flats)
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I'd probably drop it into the toolkit slightly earlier than you suggest, i.e. for a few of your "top" performances not just one, but would broadly agree. Certainly I'd agree that a teen or 20-something would be best not going down that route, and certainly not extensively - leave it for when you can't just come back in a year or two knowing you'll be better/stronger by then. I suspect I've made errors in the past on this front.
To some extent this is why I don't like it when it seems like people try to shut down or somewhat shame those engaging in critical discussion - I think you need that discussion to convince people it's a trick for near the bottom of the "things to try" list not the top. Otherwise it's just a "don't do drugs because they're bad, and don't ask questions" vibe, which I think a motivated performance-focused climber might find rather unconvincing. I know I would. Perhaps this is just a problem with separating "screwing up by dieting" vs "eating disorders", which are very different but also quite hard to really separate out due to the overlaps...
I certainly wasn't trying to shutdown debate (and I don't think others were) - just move the debate back to the film and issues around eating disorders. It feels a lot (most?) of this thread has been about how climbing is power to weight driven sport and we must accept that being light is important, obviously true as it is of a number of other sports but there's been much less discussion around how this impacts potentially vulnerable people and what the climbing community might do about.
Often the discussion on UKB is of a pretty high standard compared to other places on the internet and I would hope that we could do the same on this subject.
You raised a good point regarding "screwing up by dieting" vs "eating disorders" - this would be just the sort of stuff it might be useful to discuss, but maybe gets hidden by starting of with slightly defensive (no offense :) ) statement about being shutdown.
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With regards to the “shortcuts to success”, whereby there is the risk that newcomers to climbing may erroneously associate weight loss with climbing performance, I suspect that this is now more of an issue than it once was.
Not too long ago the only direct associations between climbing performance and weight were along the lines of “climber x in the mags is skinny as a rake, and they’ve just climbed hard route y. If I was skinny I’d be good too”. However modern approaches to training, specifically fingerboarding, tend to focus of weight quite explicitly; usually along the lines of ‘can you hang one-handed off edge size x, because all the good climbers can’.
It doesn’t take much of a leap for your hypothetical impressionable young keener to be thinking that if they can currently hold a training edge with 5 or 6kg body weight offset with a pulley, then if they weighed 5 or 6kg less then they could hold it unassisted and be the toast of Instagram, even if the reality would be quite different.
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7a and i'd agree, but considering that 99% of the climbing population will never climb 8a, I think that's a pretty high level to climb without having any consideration of your weight.
Semantics I suppose - I wouldn't call a healthy lifestyle where you avoid over-eating 'dieting', or having no consideration of your weight. I don't weigh myself from one year to the next but I notice if my belly gets flabby.
I chose 8a advisedly because it is the lower bound of elite performance. I don't think you need to do any more than maintain a healthy lifestyle to climb 8a. Dieting as a redpoint tactic to go below a healthy weight is the issue - and shouldn't be a consideration for 99% of climbers.
The wider context of this is the sportification of climbing and an increasing emphasis on 'progression' and 'achievement'. I have always considered climbing a pastime like hillwalking where the rewards are not easily commodified. I enjoy climbing (relatively) hard now and again but it's not why I go climbing. I'm very aware of the subjectivity of the grading system and place a lot more value on moving well and enjoyment. Not sure how or if a cultural shift in this direction is possible but a worthy goal imo.
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It doesn’t take much of a leap for your hypothetical impressionable young keener to be thinking that if they can currently hold a training edge with 5 or 6kg body weight offset with a pulley, then if they weighed 5 or 6kg less then they could hold it unassisted and be the toast of Instagram, even if the reality would be quite different.
Trouble is it isn’t likely to be different unless they lost some of that mass in their forearms or shoulder strength is the limiter.
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For me it came down to "would I rather be a fucking miserable 8B boulderer or a reasonably happy 7C/(soft)8A boulderer".
I chose the latter and am glad i did.
I guess dieting to the extreme may push your max grade maybe by a + or even a letter.....Back in the day, for a lot of folk when 8A was close to cutting edge, this could be achieved by dieting since I think genetically most of us are capable of getting up 8A with enough prep.
These days cutting edge is 8C+....Luckily no amount of dieting would get me close to that..i doubt even my skeleton could do lucid dreaming....So now that temptation is gone....maybe thats a good thing. I now firmly acknowledge my genetics suits darts more than climbing.
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Things have moved on a bit since JBs original reply to me, but I thought it’s worth replying.
Actually, what I meant by my post is very different to what you took from it. Which rather makes your point about it being a bad idea to post up without caveats.
What I tried to express by emphasising the “short term” is that if I want to make a sudden leap in sport climbing standards in the next month, then weight loss will yield bigger gains for me than any other method.
If you’re already very thin then this won’t apply of course. But for most of us it is true and IMO, it’s foolish to deny this.
Its the short term effectiveness of weight loss that leads people into making the error that managing weight is a normal part of the toolkit for long term performance.
In the medium to long term regulating your weight is BAD for your performance. It will make you unhappy, give you less energy to train and limit your strength gains.
But people give it a go for a month or two and get better, so they think “I’ll keep doing that then”. If they keep dieting their climbing will get worse for sure, but you can’t persuade someone that it’s in their long term interests to eat more if you deny that the weight loss helps at first, otherwise they’ll dismiss your opinion as obviously wrong.
In summary, if I was mentoring a young sport climber someone and they wanted to diet for two months to tick their hardest grade I might cautiously support that - regardless of whether that grade was 8a or 9b. But I would be damn honest with them that they WILL feel tempted to keep on regulating their weight and that this is a bad idea. And I’d want to be sure it was someone who’d be honest with me if they were going to struggle.
[Edit: I crossed out a young sport climber in my original post because I think young people are particularly vunerable and should probably avoid weight loss strategies]
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7a and i'd agree, but considering that 99% of the climbing population will never climb 8a, I think that's a pretty high level to climb without having any consideration of your weight.
Semantics I suppose - I wouldn't call a healthy lifestyle where you avoid over-eating 'dieting', or having no consideration of your weight. I don't weigh myself from one year to the next but I notice if my belly gets flabby.
I chose 8a advisedly because it is the lower bound of elite performance. I don't think you need to do any more than maintain a healthy lifestyle to climb 8a. Dieting as a redpoint tactic to go below a healthy weight is the issue - and shouldn't be a consideration for 99% of climbers.
The wider context of this is the sportification of climbing and an increasing emphasis on 'progression' and 'achievement'. I have always considered climbing a pastime like hillwalking where the rewards are not easily commodified. I enjoy climbing (relatively) hard now and again but it's not why I go climbing. I'm very aware of the subjectivity of the grading system and place a lot more value on moving well and enjoyment. Not sure how or if a cultural shift in this direction is possible but a worthy goal imo.
I'm sure we're on the same side of the argument for a lot of the points you have raised. For the avoidance of doubt, I agree that dieting below a healthy weight to climb 8a is a terrible idea. It's probably a terrible idea at 9a too unless a relatively pedestrian 9a can still earn you a living in the age of 9c.
My point was that 'healthy weight' is fairly broad for an individual, never mind the population Therefore, the suggestion that you don't need to diet to climb 8a stuck out, as I think the opposite will be true for many climbers to the right of the bodyweight bell curve, already climbing at their limit below 8a. I gave myself as an example as both 13 stone and 15 stone are healthy weights that I frequent, but if I ever climb 8a I don't think it will be at 15 stone.
People in this thread are appearing to take opposing views, but really there seems to be unanimous agreement that ED's are bad and should be prevented at all costs, particularly in young or impressionable climbers. I think the appearance of opposing views is largely due to 'diet' having become a dirty word that means different things to different people. Diet is not automatically good or bad. Some people will become healthier by dieting and some will become unhealthier.
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The problem with advocating diet but just "to a healthy weight" is that some people won't be able to stop there.
If you want to climb to your absolute performance limit, the way you'll get there is to train for years at a happy, healthy weight. And then, over a couple of months, temporarily reduce your weight to a level that is optimal for immediate performance.
The "trap" is that the immediate gain from weight loss is potentially addictive. This is manageable for some, but not at all for others. The trap makes reducing weight for performance a dangerous thing to do.
To avoid people falling in the trap, the climbing community needs to be honest both about the dangers of weight loss for climbing and also about it's benefits. If you're not honest about the ways and times that it can be effective, someone who has just seen their grade go up when they dropped 5lbs isn't going to listen to you when you tell them to go back to their normal weight for the rest of the year.
To add personal experience to this, I climbed for over 20 years and didn't ever consider my weight or think about dieting. I generally think of myself as a happy well-adjusted person with robust mental health. When I did lose weight to try and climb harder I was pretty shocked by how mentally tough it was to put the weight back on. It would have been very easy for me to fall into the weight loss trap.
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It doesn’t take much of a leap for your hypothetical impressionable young keener to be thinking that if they can currently hold a training edge with 5 or 6kg body weight offset with a pulley, then if they weighed 5 or 6kg less then they could hold it unassisted and be the toast of Instagram, even if the reality would be quite different.
Trouble is it isn’t likely to be different unless they lost some of that mass in their forearms or shoulder strength is the limiter.
Yeah, my fingerboard scores when cutting weight are almost exactly a reflection of weight lost. I.e. in those periods I chop X kgs off both sides of the pulley. This works well in the short term, but obviously disappears when you go back up, and in many ways you're left with nothing/little to show for much of the training you did while dieting. So doing it too hard, for too long, or too often is liable to be a risk to longer term progress.
but you can’t persuade someone that it’s in their long term interests to eat more if you deny that the weight loss helps at first, otherwise they’ll dismiss your opinion as obviously wrong.
Very much agree with this ^
[Edit: I crossed out a young sport climber in my original post because I think young people are particularly vunerable and should probably avoid weight loss strategies]
Yeah, I think it's easy to do it too often as well as for too long, so probably best to stay away from it when younger. If I've fucked up anywhere it's that - I think I can control the fluctuations quite well and my regaining of weight is not a mental challenge (interesting to hear that this is for you), though it is somewhat disordered (feast or famine, as you've commented before)... but if you told me I could only do it once every couple of years and not 2x per year I'd find that quite challenging mentally. Guess it goes to show there are a lot of slightly different ways for people with slightly different minds to get sucked into things.
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When I did lose weight to try and climb harder I was pretty shocked by how mentally tough it was to put the weight back on. It would have been very easy for me to fall into the weight loss trap.
p.s if you want an example of how the climbing community sometimes fucks up badly, I got quite a lot of ribbing when I posted beach pictures of me 6months later having put the weight back on (and then some). It was all meant - and taken - as light hearted and friendly banter, but in different circumstances...
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It doesn’t take much of a leap for your hypothetical impressionable young keener to be thinking that if they can currently hold a training edge with 5 or 6kg body weight offset with a pulley, then if they weighed 5 or 6kg less then they could hold it unassisted and be the toast of Instagram, even if the reality would be quite different.
Trouble is it isn’t likely to be different unless they lost some of that mass in their forearms or shoulder strength is the limiter.
Yeah, my fingerboard scores when cutting weight are almost exactly a reflection of weight lost. I.e. in those periods I chop X kgs off both sides of the pulley. This works well in the short term, but obviously disappears when you go back up, and in many ways you're left with nothing/little to show for much of the training you did while dieting. So doing it too hard, for too long, or too often is liable to be a risk to longer term progress.
but you can’t persuade someone that it’s in their long term interests to eat more if you deny that the weight loss helps at first, otherwise they’ll dismiss your opinion as obviously wrong.
Very much agree with this ^
[Edit: I crossed out a young sport climber in my original post because I think young people are particularly vunerable and should probably avoid weight loss strategies]
Yeah, I think it's easy to do it too often as well as for too long, so probably best to stay away from it when younger. If I've fucked up anywhere it's that - I think I can control the fluctuations quite well and my regaining of weight is not a mental challenge (interesting to hear that this is for you), though it is somewhat disordered (feast or famine, as you've commented before)... but if you told me I could only do it once every couple of years and not 2x per year I'd find that quite challenging mentally. Guess it goes to show there are a lot of slightly different ways for people with slightly different minds to get sucked into things.
I read this.
Then flicked over to FB (before going for my fifth run this week (on top of four board sessions and three gym sessions) and because I’m on a diet to shrug 5kg before spring and my “active” season (that will only take me down to 80kg)) and read this:
https://www.facebook.com/100044639040139/posts/248494763315157/ (https://www.facebook.com/100044639040139/posts/248494763315157/)
But it’s just occurred to me, that’s a ridiculous level of activity for a supposedly “lazy” period, I diet like that at least twice a year (for the last ten years) and come the “active” season, I’ll be switching from 6-7k runs with 25lbs to 15-25k with 35lbs, on top of climbing, diving, MTB, kayaking and ocean swimming several miles, each week.
That’s probably not particularly unusual for a UKB poster. The specific activities might change, but the overall, insane, level of drive, is common.
So, yes, as a community, we have an issue and even amongst our level, let alone the elite.
On the other hand, I suspect it’s broader than “just” eating disorders, that those are more a symptom of something that unites us all (regardless of gender) and that we are all susceptible/at risk of slipping into that category of behaviour.
You know, pushing your body beyond it’s capabilities, frequently injuring yourself, overtraining and indulging in high risk activities, primarily for “leisure” rather than “survival” or even “for material benefit”, seems quite a “disordered” behaviour, in itself...
Or so most of my relatives say.
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Aren't we and the film conflating two different things here? Eating disorders as mental illness/ body dysmorphia etc. and some one dieting as one of a range of obsessive behaviours as a result of being obsessive about a sport. The film starts with Caroline talking about her experiences before she got into climbing and seemed to want to project them onto climbing i.e. I was super skinny because of mental health issues, body image etc., climbing is full of skinny people therefore they must have mental health and body image issues. In fact climbing (like any sport, especially at the top end) is full of people who do daft things to try and be better at it. Many of us will at times have given up jobs, fucked up relationships, education or other opportunities for climbing; this is closer to the extreme dieting we see in climbing than the issues Caroline experienced.
Similarly many of us will look back at times when we dedicated too much to climbing and realise it didn't make us as happy as we thought it would and the rewards for our sacrifice weren't worth it. It struck me that all the people in the film were dieting in the reasonable (at the time) belief that losing weight would enable them to climb harder. All of them talked about obsessively looking at the scales not in the mirror.
Obviously there are people in climbing with an eating disorder but are there examples of climbing causing long term eating disorders because of their obsession with weight? It seems most of the poster children for extreme dieting in the 90's grew up to be healthy 'normal' people. Likewise the people in the film seemed to have recovered by finding a better way to achieve their climbing goals (proviso, there is some hints that some of them got medical treatment but its difficult to know the extent, so I am assuming bit here).
tl:dr climbing has an obsession problem not a body image eating disorder problem.
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Aren't we and the film conflating two different things here? Eating disorders as mental illness/ body dysmorphia etc. and some one dieting as one of a range of obsessive behaviours as a result of being obsessive about a sport.
No, I don't think so. The point I think people are making is about how easy it is for one to lead to the other.
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I once had an 8c+ climber say to me "if you can't be strong, be light". Now, having never been strong I went for the light.
I've dieted to achieve success. Looking back the success was great (for me) but at what cost? Not eating, skipping meals, constantly thinking hungry = being light = climbing harder. How much did that impact (my already fragile) mental health, not to mention the longer term physical impacts.
But, it was easy to get sucked in to that cycle. The short term gains feel sustainable, up to the point they're not. It was hard to break the pattern.
I'm still a crimp waif by most usual standards, but I'm no longer a skeletal waif. I understand how easy it is to go down that path.
When people say you look ill, it's time to take a look at yourself. I should have done sooner.
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It doesn’t take much of a leap for your hypothetical impressionable young keener to be thinking that if they can currently hold a training edge with 5 or 6kg body weight offset with a pulley, then if they weighed 5 or 6kg less then they could hold it unassisted and be the toast of Instagram, even if the reality would be quite different.
I think there’s one of the root causes right there. People wanting acknowledgment from instagram/social media. Cure that malady of the mind and it’s far easier to live with a healthy regard for your body and food, when you realise that you aren’t important and nobody who matters really gives a shit about how hard you climbed or how you look.
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I've thought for some time about posting on this thread after getting so pissed off over on the UKC discussion.
However I'd like to share my experience as I think some here have got (understandably) blinkered vision.
I'm 173cm. 79-80KG depending on the day. Last year climbed 8b+ and 8A, and I'm alright in the scope of 'strong on an edge'.
Honestly, I've been given so much shit from within the climbing community about my body composition and weight.
This is something that started as criticism and 'helpful advice' when I initially got into climbing in 2013, and progressed to incredulity & backhanded praise as I made steady grade progress each year.
I constantly get comments from other climbers expressing their surprise that I can climb what I climb with the body composition I have.
"You don't look that strong", "Imagine how good you'd be if you lost 10kg!"
This has been a constant theme of my climbing experience. Honestly? It really fucks me off >:(
I tried dropping weight a few times entirely due to many peers strongly suggesting it would make me stronger. It didn't, it just made me weak and feel depressed for the first time in my life. The funniest thing is that a broken scale was what made it all clear to me - I'd been dutifully following a calorie restriction whilst training and was feeling pretty miserable but was pleased to see the number on the scale changing slowly, and I'd climbed my first 8a. One day (when the scale was reading 72kg), I accidentally dropped it and smashed the glass. I went out and bought a new scale, set it all up and then weighed myself to make sure it was all working. The dial read 79kg - my old scale was evidently already broken. I was absolutely devastated because I'd put myself through all this restriction, low energy and generally feeling rubbish for nothing - my weight hadn't changed one bit.
However, after a little while I started to think - I'd just climbed my hardest route despite all that low energy and feeling rubbish and weak. What could I do when I didn't feel like that?
I started eating more, spoke with a nutritionist about how to make sure I was getting the right energy intake and protein etc, and climbed 4 more 8a's in a 6 week period after needing nearly the same amount of time to do my first.
Since then I'm eating well, trying as hard as I can to be a good climber, and telling people who make those comments about weight exactly what I think about it. I'm hoping to climb 8c this year - and if I do, it'll be at 79kg.
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No, I don't think so. The point I think people are making is about how easy it is for one to lead to the other.
Difficult to argue for, or especially, against this position but I’m not really seeing anything on this thread or in the film (or elsewhere) to back it up. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen and I certainly don’t want to diminish anyone’s experiences so I’ll leave the debate here.
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Aren't we and the film conflating two different things here? Eating disorders as mental illness/ body dysmorphia etc. and someone dieting as one of a range of obsessive behaviours as a result of being obsessive about a sport.
No, I don't think so. The point I think people are making is about how easy it is for one to lead to the other.
I may be wrong, but I'd say we are somewhat conflating them at times (especially early on in the thread but less so now).. but like I said earlier, I think it's hard to neatly separate "screwing up by dieting" vs "eating disorders", which are very different in some ways and yet have huge overlaps in others... At what point does misguided dedication to something become a disorder? When you can't stop? Or when looking back you realised it wasn't good for you but you were in control at the time? I'd guess more people in climbing would be falling into the latter (i.e. screwing up) than the can't-stop (i.e. full-blown ED)?
As a point of order:
One day (when the scale was reading 72kg), I accidentally dropped it and smashed the glass. I went out and bought a new scale, set it all up and then weighed myself to make sure it was all working. The dial read 79kg - my old scale was evidently already broken. I was absolutely devastated because I'd put myself through all this restriction, low energy and generally feeling rubbish for nothing - my weight hadn't changed one bit.
This story as told relies on the original scale going out of calibration over the course of the dieting, but it's also possible that you had lost the weight and the original set of scales was always ~10% underreading.
The main thrust I guess tells us that dieting doesn't work for everyone, even in the short-term. My experience has always been the total opposite - my best ever year corresponded with being so light that I was convinced the scales I was on were underreading until I stood on some other ones a while later. It's possible that I wasn't healthy at that point, but here's the real fucker, which I feel slightly reluctant to post online, would I have done 2016/2017 any differently if you'd told me it wasn't good for my longer term health or climbing? I really don't know*..
[If the last part is too off-message or controversial to be considered ok in this thread then I'm ok for mods to edit it out]
*partly driven by the context of the Aus stuff now possibly being banned forever
**I don't have any particular reason to think it has been bad for my longer-term health, although I do have LOT of injuries issues nowadays, which may or may not be related
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No, I don't think so. The point I think people are making is about how easy it is for one to lead to the other.
Difficult to argue for, or especially, against this position but I’m not really seeing anything on this thread or in the film (or elsewhere) to back it up. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen and I certainly don’t want to diminish anyone’s experiences so I’ll leave the debate here.
Well maybe this is actually one of those debates that might sound different with more female input... Anyone can suffer from ED's, but it is more prevalent amongst women. You could see this demonstrated in the film, that Angie struggled with seeing Emily climbing so well whilst being so thin. Whether this was purely concern for her friend or also partly jealousy is not thoroughly explained. However, girls often look at other girls in a comparative way. I don't personally suffer from an ED, but I know the feeling of wishing I had someone else's body, especially if they are climbing hard with no body fat. Instagram does not help with this!!
I agree with what Stu said about weight loss being a tool for top performance and that it would be easy to fall into the trap of trying to sustain this. I have experienced this in the past, and wondered why my form went so downhill. But if I was also more concerned with looking skinny, not just climbing well, then it would have been exponentially harder to break that cycle. Dangerous situation indeed for those susceptible to this type of thinking.
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Difficult to argue for, or especially, against this position but I’m not really seeing anything on this thread or in the film (or elsewhere) to back it up. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen and I certainly don’t want to diminish anyone’s experiences so I’ll leave the debate here.
Think there's been some more positive and interesting stuff posted and I would like to contribute, particularly about how the community deals with young climbers/coaching etc.
However felt should answer this first - I can only feel that you must have projecting some of your own biases on to this film. Maybe I was projecting my only biases from the other direction, but a quick google will get you some more information about Angie Payne experiences:
https://www.outsideonline.com/2191906/eating-disorders-are-more-common-you-think
'In her mid-teens, she started thinking about eating healthier—not so much because she wanted to lose weight, but because it made her feel like she was getting serious about climbing, pushing her Midwestern adolescent life in the direction of her lofty athletic dreams'
'After graduating from high school, Payne moved to Boulder, Colorado, enrolled in college to appease her parents, and devoted herself to competitive climbing. On her own for the first time, she was lonely and depressed—feelings she channeled into not only her training but also an increasingly rigid diet. The list of foods she deemed “healthy” shrank and shrank. Breakfast became a handful of granola, lunch a chicken breast, dinner a salad. She avoided scales—the moment she started quantifying her weight loss, some part of her felt she’d have to admit she had a problem. But she could feel the changes in the body: Her skin dried out, and her hair felt like straw. She stopped getting her period.'
'One night at her parents’ house, in the spring of 2004, Payne stepped on a scale for the first time in months and learned that she weighed less than 100 pounds, down from about 120 at the beginning of the school year.' [based on her height of 5'4'' thats a BMI 17 or less]
'Payne would eventually be diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, but only after she hid her eating disorder for the better part of a year, even, to some extent, from herself.'
Payne was quite clear in the film that she doesn't feel she's recovered yet 15 years later. Hopefully nobody thinks that kind of story is the acceptable face of the climbing 'obsession problem'.
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Aren't we and the film conflating two different things here? Eating disorders as mental illness/ body dysmorphia etc. and someone dieting as one of a range of obsessive behaviours as a result of being obsessive about a sport.
No, I don't think so. The point I think people are making is about how easy it is for one to lead to the other.
I may be wrong, but I'd say we are somewhat conflating them at times (especially early on in the thread but less so now).. but like I said earlier, I think it's hard to neatly separate "screwing up by dieting" vs "eating disorders", which are very different in some ways and yet have huge overlaps in others... At what point does misguided dedication to something become a disorder? When you can't stop? Or when looking back you realised it wasn't good for you but you were in control at the time? I'd guess more people in climbing would be falling into the latter (i.e. screwing up) than the can't-stop (i.e. full-blown ED)?
As a point of order:
One day (when the scale was reading 72kg), I accidentally dropped it and smashed the glass. I went out and bought a new scale, set it all up and then weighed myself to make sure it was all working. The dial read 79kg - my old scale was evidently already broken. I was absolutely devastated because I'd put myself through all this restriction, low energy and generally feeling rubbish for nothing - my weight hadn't changed one bit.
This story as told relies on the original scale going out of calibration over the course of the dieting, but it's also possible that you had lost the weight and the original set of scales was always ~10% underreading.
The main thrust I guess tells us that dieting doesn't work for everyone, even in the short-term. My experience has always been the total opposite - my best ever year corresponded with being so light that I was convinced the scales I was on were underreading until I stood on some other ones a while later. It's possible that I wasn't healthy at that point, but here's the real fucker, which I feel slightly reluctant to post online, would I have done 2016/2017 any differently if you'd told me it wasn't good for my longer term health or climbing? I really don't know*..
I did wonder about this but it explained a lot because if I weighed myself at my girlfriends mum's place I always weighed a lot more but she told me her scales were dodgy (they are, but only by a kilo or two for me as I later found out). I reckon the scales were just knackered and it happened to coincide with me weighing myself a lot.
The message I took from it is that it's better to a usual healthy diet with protein and veggies and all that business and just focus on getting strong. If it doesn't work, there's always multipitch :P
EDIT: thinking about this I see what you're getting at in that perhaps my original numbers were off and I did drop down a bit. Possible - but considering that my weight stayed rock solid since that point despite eating lots more, I'm inclined to think not.
EDIT 2: Clearly whilst interesting this actually detracts from my actual point (this was just context) which was that criticism of body image and body shaming and diet culture are VERY much prevelant in the climbing community and I was pushed into trying to lose weight directly as a result of that.
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Well maybe this is actually one of those debates that might sound different with more female input... Anyone can suffer from ED's, but it is more prevalent amongst women. You could see this demonstrated in the film, that Angie struggled with seeing Emily climbing so well whilst being so thin. Whether this was purely concern for her friend or also partly jealousy is not thoroughly explained. However, girls often look at other girls in a comparative way. I don't personally suffer from an ED, but I know the feeling of wishing I had someone else's body, especially if they are climbing hard with no body fat. Instagram does not help with this!!
I agree with what Stu said about weight loss being a tool for top performance and that it would be easy to fall into the trap of trying to sustain this. I have experienced this in the past, and wondered why my form went so downhill. But if I was also more concerned with looking skinny, not just climbing well, then it would have been exponentially harder to break that cycle. Dangerous situation indeed for those susceptible to this type of thinking.
I try not to sterotype from my experiences but agree the current stats appear to show EDs to be more prevelant in women, though estimates now are that up 25% are male. Possibly more importantly the great majority of EDs show onset in the adolescent / young adult age groups and maybe this is an area where we really should be looking at how the climbing community behaves.
From my perspective as a (late!) middle aged guy who's weight has been pretty stable for 15 years how I manage that weight is probably pretty irrelevant to the issues raised in the film. This was my problem with the earlier discussions - not some issue with discussing diet, just not really thinking it was very relevant or particularly useful. As my daughter said reading this thread earlier this afternoon 'Now they're discussing whether you need to f**king diet to climb 8a!!'.
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Well maybe this is actually one of those debates that might sound different with more female input... Anyone can suffer from ED's, but it is more prevalent amongst women. You could see this demonstrated in the film, that Angie struggled with seeing Emily climbing so well whilst being so thin. Whether this was purely concern for her friend or also partly jealousy is not thoroughly explained. However, girls often look at other girls in a comparative way. I don't personally suffer from an ED, but I know the feeling of wishing I had someone else's body, especially if they are climbing hard with no body fat. Instagram does not help with this!!
I agree with what Stu said about weight loss being a tool for top performance and that it would be easy to fall into the trap of trying to sustain this. I have experienced this in the past, and wondered why my form went so downhill. But if I was also more concerned with looking skinny, not just climbing well, then it would have been exponentially harder to break that cycle. Dangerous situation indeed for those susceptible to this type of thinking.
I try not to sterotype from my experiences but agree the current stats appear to show EDs to be more prevelant in women, though estimates now are that up 25% are male. Possibly more importantly the great majority of EDs show onset in the adolescent / young adult age groups and maybe this is an area where we really should be looking at how the climbing community behaves.
From my perspective as a (late!) middle aged guy who's weight has been pretty stable for 15 years how I manage that weight is probably pretty irrelevant to the issues raised in the film. This was my problem with the earlier discussions - not some issue with discussing diet, just not really thinking it was very relevant or particularly useful. As my daughter said reading this thread earlier this afternoon 'Now they're discussing whether you need to f**king diet to climb 8a!!'.
Agreed it is easy to stray from the topic a bit. I'd like to hear more of your daughter's thoughts on this if she's willing to share?
I also want to point out that I'm well aware there are multiple different triggers for ED's - it's not all about striving for the supermodel figure, sometimes they follow extreme trauma, or give a person power over something when everything else feels out of control. It is absolutely no leap to say that trying to achieve excellence in your sport could be a common trigger. I know this is an extreme example, but look at ballet for instance. It is almost accepted and encouraged to be unhealthily thin at the top level.
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Aren't we and the film conflating two different things here? Eating disorders as mental illness/ body dysmorphia etc. and someone dieting as one of a range of obsessive behaviours as a result of being obsessive about a sport.
No, I don't think so. The point I think people are making is about how easy it is for one to lead to the other.
I may be wrong, but I'd say we are somewhat conflating them at times (especially early on in the thread but less so now).. but like I said earlier, I think it's hard to neatly separate "screwing up by dieting" vs "eating disorders", which are very different in some ways and yet have huge overlaps in others... At what point does misguided dedication to something become a disorder? When you can't stop? Or when looking back you realised it wasn't good for you but you were in control at the time? I'd guess more people in climbing would be falling into the latter (i.e. screwing up) than the can't-stop (i.e. full-blown ED)?
As a point of order:
One day (when the scale was reading 72kg), I accidentally dropped it and smashed the glass. I went out and bought a new scale, set it all up and then weighed myself to make sure it was all working. The dial read 79kg - my old scale was evidently already broken. I was absolutely devastated because I'd put myself through all this restriction, low energy and generally feeling rubbish for nothing - my weight hadn't changed one bit.
This story as told relies on the original scale going out of calibration over the course of the dieting, but it's also possible that you had lost the weight and the original set of scales was always ~10% underreading.
The main thrust I guess tells us that dieting doesn't work for everyone, even in the short-term. My experience has always been the total opposite - my best ever year corresponded with being so light that I was convinced the scales I was on were underreading until I stood on some other ones a while later. It's possible that I wasn't healthy at that point, but here's the real fucker, which I feel slightly reluctant to post online, would I have done 2016/2017 any differently if you'd told me it wasn't good for my longer term health or climbing? I really don't know*..
I did wonder about this but it explained a lot because if I weighed myself at my girlfriends mum's place I always weighed a lot more but she told me her scales were dodgy (they are, but only by a kilo or two for me as I later found out). I reckon the scales were just knackered and it happened to coincide with me weighing myself a lot.
The message I took from it is that it's better to a usual healthy diet with protein and veggies and all that business and just focus on getting strong. If it doesn't work, there's always multipitch :P
EDIT: thinking about this I see what you're getting at in that perhaps my original numbers were off and I did drop down a bit. Possible - but considering that my weight stayed rock solid since that point despite eating lots more, I'm inclined to think not.
EDIT 2: Clearly whilst interesting this actually detracts from my actual point (this was just context) which was that criticism of body image and body shaming and diet culture are VERY much prevelant in the climbing community and I was pushed into trying to lose weight directly as a result of that.
I have a friend who has suffered from anorexia for many years, triggered by one throwaway comment by an oblivious person. Thanks for your reminder that we should be more thoughtful when speaking to each other, and less judgemental. Same goes for what Stu said about his beach photos. Banter can cause a lot of harm in some cases!
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Having skimmed through the thread I think it is worth stressing this is about mental illness.
The accompanying physical illness (which soberingly leads to the highest mortality of all mental illnesses) is just that; companion to a mental condition. It isn't the other way round, so it needs to be viewed from that perspective.
Take alcoholism as an example of an addiction: it does not matter if the road in was social anxiety, a lack of self confidence, an instinctive reaction to its euphoric effect- these roads lead to the same place and recovery needs to start there. Anorexia/bulimia is a specific mental condition, no matter how varied the different apparent 'causes' may be. They are just paths to a condition, they should not be confused with the condition itself.
edit - posts crossed NaoB, my post is not a comment on yours! + simplified post
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It is almost accepted and encouraged to be unhealthily thin at the top level.
This is where I find it hard to know how to separate the "screwing up"/"being unhealthy" from the "eating disorder" in climbing, or anything else. I know very little about the ballet world, but presumably a fair chunk of them are unhealthily thin and have EDs, but a chunk may also be just as unhealthily thin without having an ED, and they're making a calculated decision with knowledge of the potential consequences? Presumably unless you really get inside someone's head it can be tricky to know which is which? Or do people think that it becomes obvious somehow?
(I think Teaboy may be coming from, broadly, some similar thoughts to mine here?)
Mischa - yeah, I meant what you said in your edit, but you're right, it's very much a sideline to your main point!
Edit: the bulk of my above post is why I don't think I agree with this:
This was my problem with the earlier discussions - not some issue with discussing diet, just not really thinking it was very relevant or particularly useful.
It's relevant because it's very hard to separate out the two things, even if they're fundamentally quite different, so discussion will naturally spill across both IMO.
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Having skimmed through the thread I think it is worth stressing this is about mental illness.
The accompanying physical illness (which soberingly leads to the highest mortality of all mental illnesses) is just that; companion to a mental condition. It isn't the other way round, so it needs to be viewed from that perspective.
Couldn't agree more - and the pain and difficulties that the mental illness can cause can be really great irrespective of whether it reaches the point of significant physical impacts.
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Thanks for your reminder that we should be more thoughtful when speaking to each other, and less judgemental. Same goes for what Stu said about his beach photos. Banter can cause a lot of harm in some cases!
Highlighting this to continue it from Bonjoy's similar point at the start of the thread. I think there are fuzzy but blindingly fucking obvious lines you don't cross in banter unless you are very very good friends with someone and/or know full well the jibes will be taken well, and those lines are around personal insults including but not limited to ones about someone's personal appearance ESPECIALLY NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF THEIR APPEARANCE THAT ARE DETRIMENTAL TO THEM AND THEY CAN'T / OR STRUGGLE TO CONTROL - which are usually completely off-topic and irrelevant to most banterous situations especially online, as well as potentially harmful. FFS, climbers are all such a bunch of freaks in many "chosen" aspects of their lives and personalities, there's an infintessimally rich mine of piss-taking to be had before resorting to "fatty" etc. And if anyone drags up some 6 year old post where I've called Tomtom a gigantelope or something, go fuck your pedantic self unless TT himself says actually he's ashamed of his height and doesn't like people mentioning it and then you can read my apology.
:offtopic: etc etc do continue with the proper stuff. Some very good discussion coming out. A bit worrying that a mature adult man of science like Stu considered it quite a challenge to quit the performance dieting, what does that imply for less learned sorts...
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❄️
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That was a general point of principle, not even referring to you, but you can go take your snowflake to Bonjoy, Stu, and Nao.
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That was a general point of principle, not even referring to you, but you can go take your snowflake to Bonjoy, Stu, and Nao.
If you dish it out you’re fair game
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I don't dish out personal abuse about likely-sensitive physical issues, and I'm quite prepared to be called up on it if I do. As per exactly what I wrote above. It's not complicated nor obscure, and other people, again listed above, have highlighted it clearly. I've already apologised sincerely to one member of this forum for calling him a bald cunt without actually thinking how he might feel about his unavoidable baldness.
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I wanted to make a point about perception, though. With reference to our sometimes assuming somebody has issues, when, in point of fact, you really can’t tell.
I’m just under 182 cm tall.
This is me, warming up, July 2020.
I know, because I track it, I was 79.3kg that day and 18% body fat.
People kept asking if I was ill.
(If you wondered if all that loaded running, MTB and squats had given me enormous legs... uh... no).
Here’s the thing, if I put on 1.5kg from this point, I move from healthy to overweight, according to the NHS charts.
(https://i.ibb.co/b7x20h0/91-BEFD66-9-E74-4-BC0-802-B-922-F624-C1378.jpg)
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it's hard to neatly separate "screwing up by dieting" vs "eating disorders", which are very different in some ways and yet have huge overlaps in others... At what point does misguided dedication to something become a disorder? When you can't stop? Or when looking back you realised it wasn't good for you but you were in control at the time? I'd guess more people in climbing would be falling into the latter (i.e. screwing up) than the can't-stop (i.e. full-blown ED)?
I'm not qualified, so maybe I'm wrong; if I'm wrong I'm happy to be corrected. Can we get a professional on here?!
My understanding is that the definition of an eating disorder is very very simple: it is an attitude towards food which causes ill health. The ill health can be either mental or physical or both. I wouldn't be surprised if most eating disorders involved a large dose of mental and physical ill health, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the mental ill health came first in most cases and drove you deeper into the disorder which then started to have a more profound physical effect.
What Mischa describes sounds very clearly like an eating disorder because it caused him to become depressed. Ian's daughter and the people in the film clearly had quite severe eating disorders. People like Shark and Barrows sound, to me, like they walk a very dangerous line, dipping into a zone which if sustained would cause them ill health. It's dangerous not just for the immediate harm it might do to you. The success associated with those peak periods can be addictive, so you stay light for longer, or you try to go lighter still (a fallacy in itself - one thing that this has highlighted is that going too light is very damaging to performance). There are mental health effects which will act as feedback loops which push someone deeper and deeper into this harmful behaviour.
One persons's eating disorder will vary in severity from another's. One of the reasons that this discussion is so challenging is that there are some people who have suffered horribly from severe eating disorders, and there are some people who say that something that might present as a mild/early-stage eating disorder is one of the dark arts that might be courted by someone looking to climb their very best. I don't think we need to shy away from the fact that many top athletes in all sorts of sports will engage in potentially harmful behaviours in pursuit of their art. Even in climbing, anyone who climbs a 8000m+ peak without oxygen does a certain amount of damage to their body along the way.
The issue is made more complex still because everyone is coming at it from a different place. Some are naturally lighter than others, some people find that they perform better at their natural weight, others report that losing a little weight can give them an edge, some put on or lose weight more easily than others, some people seem to find it very easy to lose a bit of weight without suffering ill health, some people would need to drive themselves into horrible ill health just to lose a little weight.
What I'm getting from this is to be more careful about how I talk about this stuff. If anyone follows my Instagram they may have seen footage of Sam at Kilnsey where I note that Sam has lost 10kg over lockdown and is climbing better than ever. Maybe someone hears that, along with every other thing the climbing community blurts out ("train heavy, send light" etc etc) and misses the point that the 10kg was composed almost entirely of wine, beer, a pack of chocolate digestives as a lunchtime snack, and late nights going mad to techno (and everything that normally accompanies that). If I was to try and get in the shape of my life by losing 10kg I'd probably die.
What's great about having this film and this thread is that people are more aware of the diversity of the problem which will help them be forewarned of the dangers, and people will be more mindful of how their language could be harmful.
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I think mrjothanr is a professional and I would agree with what he said. However these days I’m an ex professional.
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Would I be right in assuming that
However these days I’m an ex professional.
and
The accompanying physical illness (which soberingly leads to the highest mortality of all mental illnesses) is just that; companion to a mental condition. It isn't the other way round, so it needs to be viewed from that perspective.
Take alcoholism as an example of an addiction: it does not matter if the road in was social anxiety, a lack of self confidence, an instinctive reaction to its euphoric effect- these roads lead to the same place and recovery needs to start there. Anorexia/bulimia is a specific mental condition, no matter how varied the different apparent 'causes' may be. They are just paths to a condition, they should not be confused with the condition itself.
mean that
My understanding is that the definition of an eating disorder is very very simple: it is an attitude towards food which causes ill health. The ill health can be either mental or physical or both. I wouldn't be surprised if most eating disorders involved a large dose of mental and physical ill health, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the mental ill health came first in most cases and drove you deeper into the disorder which then started to have a more profound physical effect.
is not quite right?
Will - your description doesn't make much sense to me, though I appreciate that how I look at it may not actually correspond to how these things are defined. You could have someone who simply makes a decision about accepting ill health based on a (probably poor/erroneous) judgement of probabilities. It doesn't make sense to me to call that an eating disorder, rather than a bad/misguided/risky decision. If you smash in pills a few times and end up in hospital it doesn't mean you necessarily had a drug problem, you just misjudged the risk. Would be interested in webbo/mrjonathanr's view on this if you work in the area...
I wonder if those at risk of making bad calls and those at risk of EDs need different things out of the community or if the solutions to both are the same?
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This is where I find it hard to know how to separate the "screwing up"/"being unhealthy" from the "eating disorder" in climbing, or anything else. I know very little about the ballet world, but presumably a fair chunk of them are unhealthily thin and have EDs, but a chunk may also be just as unhealthily thin without having an ED, and they're making a calculated decision with knowledge of the potential consequences? Presumably unless you really get inside someone's head it can be tricky to know which is which? Or do people think that it becomes obvious somehow?
(I think Teaboy may be coming from, broadly, some similar thoughts to mine here?)
Mischa - yeah, I meant what you said in your edit, but you're right, it's very much a sideline to your main point!
Edit: the bulk of my above post is why I don't think I agree with this:
This was my problem with the earlier discussions - not some issue with discussing diet, just not really thinking it was very relevant or particularly useful.
It's relevant because it's very hard to separate out the two things, even if they're fundamentally quite different, so discussion will naturally spill across both IMO.
I feel I'm struggling to explain my view on this - it's completely clear controlling weight can be part of high standard climbing and that some people can do this in a controlled fashion. The issue that I would hope would be more important on this thread is how the climbing community reduces problems where people (particular young people) can't do this and move into ED terrority, and equally supports people who are suffering. Of course its not necessarily easy to tell the difference, but then the question that should be asked is how can we help in this, maybe having a more open environment where people talk more.
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The issue that I would hope would be more important on this thread is how the climbing community reduces problems where people (particular young people) can't do this and move into ED terrority, and equally supports people who are suffering. Of course its not necessarily easy to tell the difference, but then the question that should be asked is how can we help in this, maybe having a more open environment where people talk more.
This, surely?
Some professional input, or personal viewpoints would help. It’s striking that people with a relevant history posting online have called for a more open culture, but have also been strongly against being called anorexic in online communities, so there’s clearly a way to raise the issue that’s not welcome or helpful.
But what’s the “right” way to raise concerns or discuss the issue?
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This is where I find it hard to know how to separate the "screwing up"/"being unhealthy" from the "eating disorder" in climbing, or anything else. I know very little about the ballet world, but presumably a fair chunk of them are unhealthily thin and have EDs, but a chunk may also be just as unhealthily thin without having an ED, and they're making a calculated decision with knowledge of the potential consequences? Presumably unless you really get inside someone's head it can be tricky to know which is which? Or do people think that it becomes obvious somehow?
(I think Teaboy may be coming from, broadly, some similar thoughts to mine here?)
Mischa - yeah, I meant what you said in your edit, but you're right, it's very much a sideline to your main point!
Edit: the bulk of my above post is why I don't think I agree with this:
This was my problem with the earlier discussions - not some issue with discussing diet, just not really thinking it was very relevant or particularly useful.
It's relevant because it's very hard to separate out the two things, even if they're fundamentally quite different, so discussion will naturally spill across both IMO.
I feel I'm struggling to explain my view on this - it's completely clear controlling weight can be part of high standard climbing and that some people can do this in a controlled fashion. The issue that I would hope would be more important on this thread is how the climbing community reduces problems where people (particular young people) can't do this and move into ED terrority, and equally supports people who are suffering. Of course its not necessarily easy to tell the difference, but then the question that should be asked is how can we help in this, maybe having a more open environment where people talk more.
There's a chain of education needed here - coaches of up and coming comp superstars in my opinion need to have this topic (healthy nutrition and avoiding ED's) as an important part of their curriculum, which means they need to know what they are talking about, proper information regulated by professionals as opposed to their own opinions.
When I was on the British bouldering team, we had two training sessions a month apart when they measured our body fat with calipers at various marked points, and we were 'encouraged' to drop any excess fat in between.... Looking back, this seems a questionable tactic for coaching elite athletes! We were pretty much explicitly told that we were too fat.
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it's hard to neatly separate "screwing up by dieting" vs "eating disorders", which are very different in some ways and yet have huge overlaps in others... At what point does misguided dedication to something become a disorder? When you can't stop? Or when looking back you realised it wasn't good for you but you were in control at the time? I'd guess more people in climbing would be falling into the latter (i.e. screwing up) than the can't-stop (i.e. full-blown ED)?
I'm not qualified, so maybe I'm wrong; if I'm wrong I'm happy to be corrected. Can we get a professional on here?!
My understanding is that the definition of an eating disorder is very very simple: it is an attitude towards food which causes ill health. The ill health can be either mental or physical or both. I wouldn't be surprised if most eating disorders involved a large dose of mental and physical ill health, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the mental ill health came first in most cases and drove you deeper into the disorder which then started to have a more profound physical effect.
What Mischa describes sounds very clearly like an eating disorder because it caused him to become depressed. Ian's daughter and the people in the film clearly had quite severe eating disorders. People like Shark and Barrows sound, to me, like they walk a very dangerous line, dipping into a zone which if sustained would cause them ill health. It's dangerous not just for the immediate harm it might do to you. The success associated with those peak periods can be addictive, so you stay light for longer, or you try to go lighter still (a fallacy in itself - one thing that this has highlighted is that going too light is very damaging to performance). There are mental health effects which will act as feedback loops which push someone deeper and deeper into this harmful behaviour.
One persons's eating disorder will vary in severity from another's. One of the reasons that this discussion is so challenging is that there are some people who have suffered horribly from severe eating disorders, and there are some people who say that something that might present as a mild/early-stage eating disorder is one of the dark arts that might be courted by someone looking to climb their very best. I don't think we need to shy away from the fact that many top athletes in all sorts of sports will engage in potentially harmful behaviours in pursuit of their art. Even in climbing, anyone who climbs a 8000m+ peak without oxygen does a certain amount of damage to their body along the way.
The issue is made more complex still because everyone is coming at it from a different place. Some are naturally lighter than others, some people find that they perform better at their natural weight, others report that losing a little weight can give them an edge, some put on or lose weight more easily than others, some people seem to find it very easy to lose a bit of weight without suffering ill health, some people would need to drive themselves into horrible ill health just to lose a little weight.
What I'm getting from this is to be more careful about how I talk about this stuff. If anyone follows my Instagram they may have seen footage of Sam at Kilnsey where I note that Sam has lost 10kg over lockdown and is climbing better than ever. Maybe someone hears that, along with every other thing the climbing community blurts out ("train heavy, send light" etc etc) and misses the point that the 10kg was composed almost entirely of wine, beer, a pack of chocolate digestives as a lunchtime snack, and late nights going mad to techno (and everything that normally accompanies that). If I was to try and get in the shape of my life by losing 10kg I'd probably die.
What's great about having this film and this thread is that people are more aware of the diversity of the problem which will help them be forewarned of the dangers, and people will be more mindful of how their language could be harmful.
Having read this I feel I used depressed in an inappropriate way, I meant to say that the 12-16 weeks that I spent deliberately trying to lose weight though calorie deficit were mentally uncomfortable due to spending time being hungry.
I certainly wouldn't consider myself to have had compromised mental health in the sense that seeking help would have been necessary. I just didn't like being hungry!
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There are so facets to this that there is no easy answers, also eating disorders are generally difficult to treat to the extent that there are specialist regional units to which patients are referred.
I will however offer what I saw through my working experience how I rationalised the concept of mental ill health or mental illness.
If during ones childhood or developmental years you experience trauma of some description. It may influence how you view the world or your place in it. If then at later date say when you leave home or go to university and experience other traumatic experiences. Then there is the potential to have a major psychological issue or mental illness. This may be a way your brain is working to try and protect you from reliving your childhood trauma.
So I would tend to see climbers or other sports people who develop serious eating disorders as individuals who probably would have major psychological issues whether or not they were involved in sport.
I hope this makes some sort of sense as I don’t do this any more. So you lose touch with it all.
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I'm also a mental health professional, although I haven't worked specifically with eating disorders. I've been trying to find time to post for a few days so sorry this has turned into war and peace.
it's hard to neatly separate "screwing up by dieting" vs "eating disorders", which are very different in some ways and yet have huge overlaps in others... At what point does misguided dedication to something become a disorder? When you can't stop? Or when looking back you realised it wasn't good for you but you were in control at the time? I'd guess more people in climbing would be falling into the latter (i.e. screwing up) than the can't-stop (i.e. full-blown ED)?
I'm not qualified, so maybe I'm wrong; if I'm wrong I'm happy to be corrected. Can we get a professional on here?!
My understanding is that the definition of an eating disorder is very very simple: it is an attitude towards food which causes ill health.
I think you've put your finger on exactly what is the problem with defining any kind of mental health diagnosis: it should be simple, but with the categorical diagnositic system we have, it really isn't. How disordered does someone's eating need to be to warrant an ED diagnosis? I don't know. Even with mental health territory that I am much more familiar with (anxiety, depression, personality disorders, etc.) I still don't know. The problem is that this is trying to apply a category to something which exists along multiple continua: the physical health implications, impact on someone's ability to functiion in daily live, adverse consequences on mood... For this reason (amongst others), I'm quite against the whole system of diagnoses. It implies that there is the mentally well, and there is the mentally ill. What if someone copes well some days but less well on others? Where is the boundary? I'm probably labouring the point. However I suspect that trying to apply this categorical system to the problem of disordered eating / problematic relationship to food within climbing, could be why it's so hard to separate out 'misguided dieting for performance benefit' vs 'careful and appropriate diet for performance benefit' vs 'I feel that I must lose weight at all costs even to the detriment to my long-term health'
(I'm on a bit of an anti-diagnosis rant here, but there are other problems with the diagnostic system for mental health difficulties, for example workable system should have categories which are distinct. Most people who meet the criteria for one diagnosis will also meet the criteria for another, or for several. You could speak to ten different people with the same diagnosis yet the form (i.e. the thoughts, patters of behaviour etc) that they would describe, and the nature of the onset, could be different for all of them. I'm definitely now labouring the point). I should probably also caveat this viewpoint, as although it is commong amongst psychologists, I am probably at the anti-diagnosis end of the spectrum compared with some of my colleagues. Also, even I can see that diagnoses can b helpful where it gives someone a name for something which they have wordlessly struggled against, and provides a quick way of communicating the bare bones of the nature of someone's difficulties)
I'm really glad to see that some of the discussion has moved to anxieties about appearance too. Although climbing is very inclusive, it is over-represents lean, toned, and muscular folk (obvs). Given the role of altered perception of one's own physique in the develpment of disordered eating (i.e. even very very thin people with disordered eating may genuinely see themselves as overweight when looking in the mirror - a perceptual distortion), I'd imagine that this would be exacerbated by comparisons with peers amongst climbers (compared to the general public). Funnilly enough, I tried to start this paragraph by stating that I am a xyz physique, but I really didn't know how to describe myself? I don't even know how others would see me, and for a moment I had a pang of anxiety about writing the 'wrong' thing and getting corrected by someone who knows me - what an easy trap to fall into that must be...
:offtopic: etc etc do continue with the proper stuff. Some very good discussion coming out. A bit worrying that a mature adult man of science like Stu considered it quite a challenge to quit the performance dieting, what does that imply for less learned sorts...
Just a thought on this, although I suspect that you didn't meant to imply it, I don't think that intelligence can innoculate anyone against the kind of thoughts which can lead to disordered eating (i.e. thoughts that 'I am not good enough' 'I need to be thinner to fit in' 'I look ugly like this'). These kind of thoughts - which I am sure everyone is suceptible to to varying degrees - are not open to dispassionate reasoning because they are driven by very strong emotions (and may be based on earlier trauma, such as bullying, as Webbo described). In fact, with a quick google scholar cherry picking search, there seems to be a lot of evidence that disordered eating is associated with difficulties in emotion regulation.
Final thought: good points Will, Stu, and Fiend about how careful we should be with 'banter' about weight. It should go without saying that this is entirely context dependent. Having said that, I'm not ever confident enough to judge a context as being safe to piss-take about someone's weight but maybe that's just me.
One more final thought: thanks to those who've posted with their own experiences of difficulties with eating. There are so many reasons why this is an easy trap for anyone to fall into that I think losing stigma around it is so important to allow others to talk about their own difficulties. Thanks for leading the way on that.
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Fair point Reeve. I was suggesting that the rigorous academic might be less susceptible to going down such harmful paths due to more chance of scrutinising the issues involved, but yes in retrospect it's fair that intellectuals are just as capable of missing common sense and self-care.
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As a UCU rep part of my role was to help academics and it used to drive me nuts that basic things that most ordinary intelligent people picked up quickly, too often moved in treacle in academic minds... be it avoiding various issues that might damage their health (overwork/overuse/working when ill, pointless but stressful fights), to basic financial planning (especially pensions). The only thing I could think of to explain it was it wasn't 'interesting'. Some academic diets were dreadful, which was very dangerous to health when combined with working long hours with few holidays.
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I think mrjothanr is a professional and I would agree with what he said. However these days I’m an ex professional.
Sorry, if I seemed too authoritative, I am not a professional in this field. I teach (secondary), but this is an issue I have seen in more than one context.
I would not like to go beyond what I am qualified to comment on. However, the seriousness of the illness and devastating outcomes I feel are pretty much beyond debate.
When you are talking about a condition where someone can literally starve themself to death, or live for years on the edge of doing so, it seems obvious that we are talking about very serious mental illness.
I see disordered eating as having much more to do with control rather than food in and of itself. Food can become a vehicle of control. That’s a hard habit to kick.
I am not a mental health professional though, please bear that in mind.
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I've been requested to post the following from someone with experience in the field:
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My non-critical opinion is that there’s not much understanding and too much paternalism. To take an "anti ED" stance as the video (which I didn’t really like) and UKB do, is to say eating disorders are bad, eating more healthily is good, and ‘the community’ should promote good. A lot of therapies work with this idea as fact. Another way to think about this is externalising the problem. You are separate to your eating disorder, which is something to be treated.
This is problematic for many people as the eating disorder (if it even makes sense to call it that) is congruent with their sense of self (ego-syntonic). By creating a blanket approach of externalising there is a significant proportion of people who will experience increased distress as part of them is split off and pathologised by the other (community or whoever). For some people the act of restriction, exercise control and purging has been the most successful thing in keeping them together. For example cleansing the system to cope with past trauma.
So talking about a community that is ‘riddled’ with EDs and body dysmorphia that needs to be dealt with will do little to help the significant majority. The same can be said for any self harming difficulties. For example, would anyone say the climbing community is riddled with ‘self harm’? Doesn’t sound so great huh. Raising awareness in this way is virtue signalling as per a recent UKC thread.
People should be afforded their eating disorders just as they should be afforded suicidal thoughts. Nietzsche’s quote about this was something like ‘thoughts of suicide have got me through many a long night’
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(This is not my comment so I can't reply to it nor expand on it further, sorry)
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Really good points made.
I've been requested to post the following from someone with experience in the field:
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My non-critical opinion is that there’s not much understanding and too much paternalism. To take an "anti ED" stance as the video (which I didn’t really like) and UKB do, is to say eating disorders are bad, eating more healthily is good, and ‘the community’ should promote good. A lot of therapies work with this idea as fact. Another way to think about this is externalising the problem. You are separate to your eating disorder, which is something to be treated.
This is problematic for many people as the eating disorder (if it even makes sense to call it that) is congruent with their sense of self (ego-syntonic). By creating a blanket approach of externalising there is a significant proportion of people who will experience increased distress as part of them is split off and pathologised by the other (community or whoever). For some people the act of restriction, exercise control and purging has been the most successful thing in keeping them together. For example cleansing the system to cope with past trauma.
So talking about a community that is ‘riddled’ with EDs and body dysmorphia that needs to be dealt with will do little to help the significant majority. The same can be said for any self harming difficulties. For example, would anyone say the climbing community is riddled with ‘self harm’? Doesn’t sound so great huh. Raising awareness in this way is virtue signalling as per a recent UKC thread.
People should be afforded their eating disorders just as they should be afforded suicidal thoughts. Nietzsche’s quote about this was something like ‘thoughts of suicide have got me through many a long night’
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(This is not my comment so I can't reply to it nor expand on it further, sorry)
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I've been requested to post the following from someone with experience in the field:
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Was that Cheetham?
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Those points lie at the heart matter don't they? Thank you to Fiend and whoever wrote that.
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I've been requested to post the following from someone with experience in the field:
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My non-critical opinion is that there’s not much understanding and too much paternalism. To take an "anti ED" stance as the video (which I didn’t really like) and UKB do, is to say eating disorders are bad, eating more healthily is good, and ‘the community’ should promote good. A lot of therapies work with this idea as fact. Another way to think about this is externalising the problem. You are separate to your eating disorder, which is something to be treated.
This is problematic for many people as the eating disorder (if it even makes sense to call it that) is congruent with their sense of self (ego-syntonic). By creating a blanket approach of externalising there is a significant proportion of people who will experience increased distress as part of them is split off and pathologised by the other (community or whoever). For some people the act of restriction, exercise control and purging has been the most successful thing in keeping them together. For example cleansing the system to cope with past trauma.
So talking about a community that is ‘riddled’ with EDs and body dysmorphia that needs to be dealt with will do little to help the significant majority. The same can be said for any self harming difficulties. For example, would anyone say the climbing community is riddled with ‘self harm’? Doesn’t sound so great huh. Raising awareness in this way is virtue signalling as per a recent UKC thread.
People should be afforded their eating disorders just as they should be afforded suicidal thoughts. Nietzsche’s quote about this was something like ‘thoughts of suicide have got me through many a long night’
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(This is not my comment so I can't reply to it nor expand on it further, sorry)
That’s fine if you want to watch someone die of massive organ failure.
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I've been requested to post the following from someone with experience in the field:
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My non-critical opinion is that there’s not much understanding and too much paternalism. To take an "anti ED" stance as the video (which I didn’t really like) and UKB do, is to say eating disorders are bad, eating more healthily is good, and ‘the community’ should promote good. A lot of therapies work with this idea as fact. Another way to think about this is externalising the problem. You are separate to your eating disorder, which is something to be treated.
This is problematic for many people as the eating disorder (if it even makes sense to call it that) is congruent with their sense of self (ego-syntonic). By creating a blanket approach of externalising there is a significant proportion of people who will experience increased distress as part of them is split off and pathologised by the other (community or whoever). For some people the act of restriction, exercise control and purging has been the most successful thing in keeping them together. For example cleansing the system to cope with past trauma.
So talking about a community that is ‘riddled’ with EDs and body dysmorphia that needs to be dealt with will do little to help the significant majority. The same can be said for any self harming difficulties. For example, would anyone say the climbing community is riddled with ‘self harm’? Doesn’t sound so great huh. Raising awareness in this way is virtue signalling as per a recent UKC thread.
People should be afforded their eating disorders just as they should be afforded suicidal thoughts. Nietzsche’s quote about this was something like ‘thoughts of suicide have got me through many a long night’
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(This is not my comment so I can't reply to it nor expand on it further, sorry)
I understand the theory but that model doesn't seem to leave any room for treating a disorder. Are you saying that people shouldn't be treated? Should people be afforded all their teeth falling out from their bulimia; should they be afforded their fertility problems?
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I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like the quoteD ANonymous is conflating paternalism with compassion. Of course, no one can be made to change their behaviour - eating behaviour or otherwise. But I haven't seen anyone here suggest that treatment should be enforced (which would be paternalistic, although in extreme situations does of course happen under the mental health act). What has been suggested are ways to change the social environment to be less reinforcing of disordered eating and less critical of body shapes which are not crimp waifs.
It is entirely possible to hold the view that disordered eating is undesirable and physically unhealthy and understand the reasons for its onset (as a way of managing expectations, to regulate upsetting emotions, achievement, helping you feel that you fit in, or whatever may be the unique experience of that individual)
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Late to reply to latest stuff - Amy had a read earlier, quick reaction was, I like MrJonathanr and Reeve, whoever Fiend is posting for can p*ss off!
More seriously, she wants to say that people with EDs can be someone you might meet everyday and never know that anything was wrong. In her case she was very aware of her issues and could articulate them very well but that didn't allow her to stop or manage them despite the pain they were causing. On the issue of medicalisation/pathologisation her experience was that it was actually really difficult to get medical support, with some really unhelpful experiences with the NHS before she managed to find a ED charity who showed undertstanding and could provide assistence including referral for blood tests etc - fortunately we had a close and pretty honest relationship which allowed us to support as best we could.
Amy - Hi, so I've been reading this forum as I think its so important for conversations about eatings disorders, disordered eating and body image issues to be open, and not be hidden away as if it is a shameful thing to be struggling with.
I struggled masisvely with actually never being seen in medical situations as ill enough. The eating disorder had made me an empty shell of myself, I became consumed by constant intrustive, obsessive thoughts around food, calories, exercise, climbing and my body yet i was not able to receive any NHS or GP support as all the services were closed to referrals, and even to be referred I needed to be a lower BMI (<17.5).
Eating disorders are complicated, and affect each individual differently, and it would be wrong of me to say that my experience is the same for others. I always felt like I was never ill enough- by medical standards, and by the compliments i got for looking 'light and strong' at the climbing wall. Yet for 2 years I feared food, I feared being out of control of meals and meal times, I couldnt proplerly enjoy times with friends and family, and climbing became a way for me to justify that 'I must be fine, I can still climb'.
I think, what I'm trying to get across, is that among all this conversation around eating disorders, is that people need to remember that so many people can be struggling without anyone ever knowing. It cannot be noticed by someones body, and regardless of physical impacts, I would never, ever, say that my eating disorder was a 'successful way of keeping me together'. Its an experience I would never wish on anyone, and I would hope that this conversation would focus on people being able to be open about their struggles and not focus on weights, and 'diets' for projects.
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For example, would anyone say the climbing community is riddled with ‘self harm’? Doesn’t sound so great huh. Raising awareness in this way is virtue signalling as per a recent UKC thread.
People should be afforded their eating disorders just as they should be afforded suicidal thoughts. Nietzsche’s quote about this was something like ‘thoughts of suicide have got me through many a long night’
The last time I was body shamed by any part of the climbing community was when I was nicknamed "coco the clown" by some weak lad at Guiseley wall in the '80s because of my flabby belly. Since then every reference to my excess weight has been felt to me to be a compliment of my skill and strength.
I have regularly thought about the self harm and risk to life aspect of climbing and how weird it all is - at one end of the scale is those of us posting pictures of shredded knuckles and bleeding tips (this is not normal behaviour according to non climbing people I have spoken to) - at the other end of the scale is those of us enthusing about epic disasters and close shaves with death (again, not normal behaviour according to my wife's friends).
I remember deciding not to post about some of my experiences on the "closest I've come to carking it" thread because I was concerned that I would be promoting excessive risk taking, but these experiences were all connected with having fun, achieving things I felt great about and connecting with similarly minded people. These near misses with death or injury are some of my best memories - and certainly my best pub anecdotes
I find it difficult to discern the boundary between my "good" risk taking and other people's dangerous, climbing focussed eating habits.
I reached a very definite point with steep and remote snowboarding on my own where I realised that the risks I was taking were no longer life enhancing. This was mostly to do with having other life goals - relationships and other people becoming important was the bulk of it, but also an appreciation of long term enjoyment of the world. Again, I can't see much difference between those risks and food control risks in exchange for grades.
One of the obvious distinctions for me is for people who are not fully developed adults, either physically or mentally, being able to make the right judgement about what is the right level of risk. If I'm honest, I feel that that may only confirmed by results - young people might take massive risks and get away with it and be seen as heroes - and as long as they don't turn out to be messed up adults, everyone* will see the risks as worth it.
*edit - no, not everyone - just us risk and glory idiots
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Grasshopper, you have fully absorbed the “it’s all life” approach to risk. My work is done.
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Grasshopper, you have fully absorbed the “it’s all life” approach to risk. My work is done.
it is all life - apart from the death bit where the life ends
(bah, I got sucked in by the old person)
at no point did I mention earning money
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I got some interesting criticism last year from non-climbers following my posting some videos of my lad bouldering outside without a rope or helmet.
This helped me to reflect on risks I take for my own enjoyment (the kids are my dependants) and also what risks I consider to be totally worth letting the kids take.
No amazing conclusions other than that it's always worth trying to see things from a non-climbers perspective.
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I got some interesting criticism last year from non-climbers following my posting some videos of my lad bouldering outside without a rope or helmet.
This helped me to reflect on risks I take for my own enjoyment (the kids are my dependants) and also what risks I consider to be totally worth letting the kids take.
No amazing conclusions other than that it's always worth trying to see things from a non-climbers perspective.
OT, but...
Bah humbug to the criticism!
The number of trees I fell out of, bikes I smashed, bones I broke, skin I shredded, other kids I got beaten up by, horses that kicked me into next week (or crushed my feet as I shovelled their shit) or got thrown from or the many many bits of rusty metal that impaled various body parts; all before I was 12. Then for my 13th birthday (ish) having my back broken, getting thrown off the Judo mats onto the hard wooden gym floor/assembly chairs stacked around the edge.
None of the above required any parental supervision or approval (in fact, several resulted in not being able to sit down for an hour or two).
Plus, that list only includes those that required the hours drive to the ED, plenty of daft ideas came off without a hitch (did you know, if you take one of those 8’x4’ polythene survival bags and stuff it with empty fertiliser sacks; it makes a pretty good “air bag” and when playing “Stuntman” with your mates, you can jump off a bungalow roof and land on it “safely)?
What I mean is, that’s just being a kid and stifling that sort of thing is not doing them any favours. For reference, I didn’t lose any mates until we hit 17 and then two in quick succession to motorbikes and another the following year to a single vehicle car accident, but both cars and motorbike were considered perfectly acceptable risks.
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Amy: I don't have time for a full reply right now but I still wanted to say well done for sharing your experiences - very powerful to read and I'm sure that doing so can help anyone else who is going through similar experiences to know that they are not alone, so thank you.
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Apologies for the more academic/dispassionate nature of the following... almost worth a thread split to separate the more abstract questions from.the direct discussion of EDs in climbing, but I'm not sure how you'd manage it...
I find it really interesting with these questions about what potentially risky and self-destructive behaviours/obsessions are considered "bad" and in need for treatment vs "ok" and part of personal choice (e.g. BASE, soloing) or even applauded by some parts of society(e.g. breaking your body in the name of gold, working yourself into the ground in the name of "success" and at the expense of fun, family and longevity). The questions link a lot to the documentary that Simon posted earlier in the thread about athletes too (which was shot like a 90s BBC doc you'd watch in school but was interesting). (Pity Dan, presuming it was Dan, didn't want to come on and post). I have zero answers around this, only questions...
Is a key difference is around whether you could stop if you wanted to? But I guess in the midst of any obsession (addiction?) no-one ever says they want to stop, and people usually think they're making conscious informed choices? Or do many/most with EDs know that they're out of control (even if they're doing it to be in control) but can't really stop even if at some level they want to...? It sounds like that was the case for your daughter Ian? or is there a full spectrum around that? I guess an underlying knowledge that you want to stop would/could make it quite different from the more conscious "informed consent" of setting off up K2 in winter or on a chop route, or working yourself to a broken life, even if there are some philosophical similarities or difficulty separating these things as an external observer, or even internally trying to understand your own thoughts and motivations??
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Good insight Matt. I had a similarly mental approach to risk as a kid and never even broke anything nor recall any life threatening accidents. My dad aided and abetted in that from being around farm equipment, building mad rope climbing structures in our back garden and encouraging us riding trick cycles of various kinds. I had graded nearly every tree round my village for quality of climb and risk (dutch elm meant that risk was often increasing fast). In contrast the moped motorbike and car phase of my age group in mid to late teens seemed normal but led to way too many tragedies. Most kids played outside without supervision back then so maybe society has changed, as many families I know are paranoid about what their kids do.
Back on subject I've been fat shamed regularly (I kept my thyroid issues mainly private until fairly recently) and ability shamed and 'drive to achieve' shamed. I've always regarded all of those shamings in toto as sign of unhealthy behavioural traits in climbing. My friends have been great and I love climbing and love being around similar minded people whether they win national competitions to those with serious problems with obesity working to onsight their first Mod route. I'm really pleased these subject of eating disorders and body image are at last getting the publicity they deserve.
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Tyler Hamilton talking about achieving race weight, not having an ED and it just being part of his job. Lots going on behind the eyes:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5CMdyOFgQDQ (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5CMdyOFgQDQ)
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Grasshopper, you have fully absorbed the “it’s all life” approach to risk. My work is done.
it is all life - apart from the death bit where the life ends
(bah, I got sucked in by the old person)
at no point did I mention earning money
To be fair, even the death bit, is part of the life bit.
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Amy, Thank you for posting that. It takes courage to talk, hopefully that can give others the confidence to talk too :clap2:
Interesting what you say about not being ‘ill enough’ to access support, it is clear that current provision is not sufficient. Perhaps if this is more openly debated the need will be more widely recognised. I was pretty shocked by Caroline’s statistic of 30m Americans being affected, I assume she has done her research thoroughly.
Is a key difference is around whether you could stop if you wanted to? But I guess in the midst of any obsession (addiction?) no-one ever says they want to stop, and people usually think they're making conscious informed choices?
That is the essence of Fiend’s post isn’t it? Not everyone is looking to change. There is a lot of pro-ana stuff out there I believe.. .just telling people they are wrong may not be effective way of engaging them. And like Webbo says, consequences of inaction can be dire, for bulimia as well as anorexia (not that they are wholly different conditions).
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whoever Fiend is posting for can p*ss off!
Not an uncommon feeling for me either! :lol: I have read that post several times and still don't understand it properly.
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I don't dish out personal abuse about likely-sensitive physical issues, and I'm quite prepared to be called up on it if I do.
Anyone tall than you are fair game though right?
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I've thought for some time about posting on this thread after getting so pissed off over on the UKC discussion.
However I'd like to share my experience as I think some here have got (understandably) blinkered vision.
I'm 173cm. 79-80KG depending on the day. Last year climbed 8b+ and 8A, and I'm alright in the scope of 'strong on an edge'.
Honestly, I've been given so much shit from within the climbing community about my body composition and weight.
This is something that started as criticism and 'helpful advice' when I initially got into climbing in 2013, and progressed to incredulity & backhanded praise as I made steady grade progress each year.
I constantly get comments from other climbers expressing their surprise that I can climb what I climb with the body composition I have.
"You don't look that strong", "Imagine how good you'd be if you lost 10kg!"
This has been a constant theme of my climbing experience. Honestly? It really fucks me off >:(
I tried dropping weight a few times entirely due to many peers strongly suggesting it would make me stronger. It didn't, it just made me weak and feel depressed for the first time in my life. The funniest thing is that a broken scale was what made it all clear to me - I'd been dutifully following a calorie restriction whilst training and was feeling pretty miserable but was pleased to see the number on the scale changing slowly, and I'd climbed my first 8a. One day (when the scale was reading 72kg), I accidentally dropped it and smashed the glass. I went out and bought a new scale, set it all up and then weighed myself to make sure it was all working. The dial read 79kg - my old scale was evidently already broken. I was absolutely devastated because I'd put myself through all this restriction, low energy and generally feeling rubbish for nothing - my weight hadn't changed one bit.
However, after a little while I started to think - I'd just climbed my hardest route despite all that low energy and feeling rubbish and weak. What could I do when I didn't feel like that?
I started eating more, spoke with a nutritionist about how to make sure I was getting the right energy intake and protein etc, and climbed 4 more 8a's in a 6 week period after needing nearly the same amount of time to do my first.
Since then I'm eating well, trying as hard as I can to be a good climber, and telling people who make those comments about weight exactly what I think about it. I'm hoping to climb 8c this year - and if I do, it'll be at 79kg.
I'm delighted to read this for a number of reasons, but mainly because of your firm commitment to sport climbing beef at the end.
I've avoided this thread so far, partly because my own attitude to weight and weight loss is not especially sensible and I always seem to be trying to lose it or in a low psyche can't be fucked eat and drink far too much and put it all back on. What I will say is that, without various long term climbing related goals (sadly mostly related to grades and going on trips to sunny places) I would almost certainly be sitting on a train with a beer and a pack of pork pies weighting in at around 120kg.
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I would almost certainly be sitting on a train with a beer and a pack of pork pies weighting in at around 120kg.
I think it’s important to make time for both training and pork pies.
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Climbing at Kilnsey is / was good for both. The Spa supermarket in Threshfield includes a branch of H Weatherheads, an award-winning Pateley Bridge butchers: very nice pork pies, pasties, and quiches. The pork pies with chorizo and black pudding under the lid are recommended. Popping in to re-stock on the way home was my regular reward after a good session during non-Covid times (the pork pies freeze well if wrapped in foil).
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My default for big days in the mountains; compact, tasty, moist and will sit in your stomach for hours.
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Before I went veggie I used to like a pork pie and mustard. The mustard was the best bit.
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Good knowledge on the threshfield pately bridge butcher connection. Psyched.
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Not sure if the original thread has much life left , but good post by Molly TS on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLFZS-Djvh5/?igshid=1h73ubkg5o65w
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Kids read those posts, good role model there.
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I may be misreading, but I read Molly's post as falling as much into the "possibly bad dieting/weight decisions" as the "ED" camp, though it's hard to tell, which is why I don't think its easy (or worth it?) to separate these things out. Only difference is that Molly's post is more on the anti-diet bandwagon that the "defensive" posts from people more on the "diet can be useful" that some people didn't like
One concern I would have with the current anti-diet movement is that dieting becomes so frowned upon that genuine critical conversation about its possible risks and benefits is driven underground. E.g. I wouldn't dare raise the point in Molly's insta that her injury may or may not have had anything to do with weight (and I have pretty thick skin for internet arguments).. and I'm sure others wouldn't too, but will be thinking the same (i.e. discussion around this stuff is already not open, honest or critical. Pity bonjoy deleted his more argumentative post from a few days ago)
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genuine critical conversation about its possible risks and benefits
The problem is that having such a conversation out in the open, with high achieving athletes such as yourself as the exemplar of what the results can look like, creates an environment which presents quite a significant risk to quite a lot of people's health, mental and physical. I have sympathy with the point of view which suggests that it would be better if the received wisdom was that dieting for performance should be avoided for 95% of participants.
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That's fine, and if that's what's best for people then fair enough. But
1) you forfeit the ability to claim in any way, shape or form that you want open and honest discussion, or even any form of discussion/conversation on the topic (people keep saying, on here and insta etc that it's great to have conversation around this - you can't say that unless you actually want conversation)
2) you run the risk of dieting being a secret that you keep hidden because others wouldn't approve
3) you fuck over anyone who is considering dieting and thinks critically because it becomes clear that the message is "don't do drugs because drugs are bad" with no real discussion about how bad, what we understand, how to manage it safely if you do want to "experiment", etc.
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I may be misreading, but I read Molly's post as falling as much into the "possibly bad dieting/weight decisions" as the "ED" camp, though it's hard to tell, which is why I don't think its easy (or worth it?) to separate these things out. Only difference is that Molly's post is more on the anti-diet bandwagon that the "defensive" posts from people more on the "diet can be useful" that some people didn't like
One concern I would have with the current anti-diet movement is that dieting becomes so frowned upon that genuine critical conversation about its possible risks and benefits is driven underground. E.g. I wouldn't dare raise the point in Molly's insta that her injury may or may not have had anything to do with weight (and I have pretty thick skin for internet arguments).. and I'm sure others wouldn't too, but will be thinking the same (i.e. discussion around this stuff is already not open, honest or critical. Pity bonjoy deleted his more argumentative post from a few days ago)
I can't recall what I wrote to be honest. Possibly something about the chilling effect of tone policing. I did consider starting a new thread to discuss the point separately as I thought it related to wider trends in social media, and I didn't want to derail this discussion. But eventually decided not to on the basis people might object to my tone... :???:
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It’s still in deleted items if you want to check or quote yourself
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I wouldn't pretend that such an approach would have no downsides. Its all a matter of picking which approach is likely to cause less social harm, which is obviously a matter of opinion. In order:
1) you forfeit the ability to claim in any way, shape or form that you want open and honest discussion, or even any form of discussion/conversation on the topic (people keep saying, on here and insta etc that it's great to have conversation around this - you can't say that unless you actually want conversation)
I think this is lost in translation to a certain extent, because by 'conversation' what I think is meant is an acknowledgement of the effects of dieting and EDs in climbing in the past and present and a recognition that we haven't been sensitive about that in the past. As I said previously, I don't actually believe that widespread discussion of how dieting can work for climbing would actually be a good thing, because I think it would quickly feed down from 9a climbers to 7a climbers. YMMV obviously.
2) you run the risk of dieting being a secret that you keep hidden because others wouldn't approve
Yes, this is a risk. I don't know whether the risk of this would outweigh the existing risk of people believing that 'everyone else is doing it, it gets results, smart, strong climbers advocate it as an approach for pushing your grade.' Beyond my pay grade!
3) you fuck over anyone who is considering dieting and thinks critically because it becomes clear that the message is "don't do drugs because drugs are bad" with no real discussion about how bad, what we understand, how to manage it safely if you do want to "experiment", etc.
The drugs argument is an interesting one and one for another thread that I have very mixed opinions on, and maybe that feeds a bit into my views on this. For me, 'thinking critically' is one of those loaded terms that has applies a negative connotation to those who prefer to simply not engage in the activity under discussion (because they don't have the time, don't feel qualified, or numerous other reasons), and a positive connotation to those that do. Basically my view on this is the same as for no.1; I am conflicted on whether an open, 'critical' discussion on dieting would produce better health outcomes for people than a blanket approach. Because I think a blanket approach would on balance help a greater number of people I am inclined to think this is the better option.
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Almost certainly a bad idea but WTH -
I posted, then deleted this, in response comments about the defensive tone of various people's contributions. You can't defend anything labelled defensive without looking defensive...
In contrast I find generalised complaints about tone depressing and alienating. At the risk of being shredded for my negative tone I think this sort of thing puts a lot of people off engaging in discussions like this. I'd prefer people could say what they think, and be rigorously challenged on the specifics when people disagree, rather than receiving a non-specific scolding for their 'tone'.
:worms:
Please, if anyone thinks this is an inappropriate place for this discussion, say so and I will move it elsewhere.
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by 'conversation' what I think is meant is [...]
What you describe isn't what I would call conversation!
For me, 'thinking critically' is one of those loaded terms that has applies a negative connotation to those who prefer to simply not engage in the activity under discussion (because they don't have the time, don't feel qualified, or numerous other reasons), and a positive connotation to those that do. Basically my view on this is the same as for no.1; I am conflicted on whether an open, 'critical' discussion on dieting would produce better health outcomes for people than a blanket approach. Because I think a blanket approach would on balance help a greater number of people I am inclined to think this is the better option.
I don't think negatively of anyone who considers something (be it dieting, drugs or anything else) and decides against it. I don't particularly think less of those who decide against something without a real reason - it's their choice. I do think less of those who push a view without allowing interrogation of it. My thought is, broadly, this: if I read something like Molly's post, I rapidly ask "how do we know the injuries were diet driven", but if I'm not allowed to ask this question I just form a dim view of those telling me that like a fact but not allowing me to ask the questions, so I'll probably start to ignore them (same as Stu's earlier point - if you claim that dieting doesn't work well for lots of people then many will ignore you because it's clearly not true; with injuries it's obviously much more vague because causation in individual cases is largely unknowable, but the broad point is the same). Perhaps this says as much about me and my default scepticism as it does about anything else
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Alex by ‘dieting’ are you strictly referring to calorie restriction, going to bed hungry, etc.? What’s your view around approaches based more around changing macros, ‘fuelling’, etc., is this coming under the heading of ‘dieting’ for you?
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I'm roughly with Barrows on this. Molly seemed to recognise in her post that losing some weight had been beneficial in the short term but wasn't sustainable in the long term. Other people may not be able to get the same short term benefits but that doesn't mean it wouldn't work for everyone. That much seems to be fact; if you deny it or try and hush it up then you end up in exactly the same place we were in before the film - with something that is clearly used behind the scenes by some people, and which fucks some people up, but around which there is a culture of silence. Telling people that weight loss is always bad and must always be avoided isn't going to stop people drawing their own conclusions after scrolling through Instagram and seeing people who cut weight getting up stuff.
If we recognise that there can be benefits then you also get to have a meaningful conversation of what the risks are and set out the caveats. These caveats might be that the dark arts should only be used once you've optimised everything else; and that they should only be used for limited, short-term purposes (i.e. for a short period of redpointing something that would be very significant to you). It would be important to have somebody close to you who understands the risks and can intervene if things are becoming unhealthy.
I'm not sure how effective this 'buddy system' backstop might be in the context of real mental health disorders (body dysmorphia etc), but I would guess that eating disorders would be less common in people who came to weight-loss through an openly discussed and measured approach, than in people who came to it by being influenced by what they saw happening on social media.
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if I read something like Molly's post, I rapidly ask "how do we know the injuries were diet driven", but if I'm not allowed to ask this question I just form a dim view of those telling me that like a fact but not allowing me to ask the questions
I mean, my immediate response to this is that its none of our business to be honest! If Molly (not exactly uninformed on these issues I would presume!), who knows her body and has coaches/ contacts to discuss things with, suggests they were then I don't think a default questioning tone is particularly relevant or appropriate, especially on a public forum. I don't think anyone talking about how diet affected their climbing/health is obliged to do a peer reviewed study before talking about it.
Perhaps this says as much about me and my default scepticism as it does about anything else
I think it does, and I don't think its per se a bad setting to be on, but I do think it has limitations when it comes to empathetic response to difficult issues. This is not to say your comments here aren't empathetic (I think they are sensible and interesting) but I do think they would have implications if they were the status quo.
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if I read something like Molly's post, I rapidly ask "how do we know the injuries were diet driven", but if I'm not allowed to ask this question I just form a dim view of those telling me that like a fact but not allowing me to ask the questions
I mean, my immediate response to this is that its none of our business to be honest! If Molly (not exactly uninformed on these issues I would presume!), who knows her body and has coaches/ contacts to discuss things with, suggests they were then I don't think a default questioning tone is particularly relevant or appropriate, especially on a public forum. I don't think anyone talking about how diet affected their climbing/health is obliged to do a peer reviewed study before talking about it.
A bit of balance needed I think. There's no need to put everything under a microscope - I trust that Molly and her coaches know something about this - but saying that discussion of the causation of injuries should be off the cards can lead to incorrect information being taken as gospel, which can lead to people making less informed decisions about risk.
As an example, when Mina had her accident on Rainshadow she ascribed the blame to a loose fitting harness. Without going into the specifics I think the UKB Independent Inquiry reported that this might have had a small impact but perhaps not as significant as getting a hard catch or not wearing a helmet when there's a chance you'll get spat off in the way she did. I know punters who then started worrying about whether their harness fitted just right; I didn't hear anybody worrying about hard catches. I still see punters, wearing harnesses that may as well be made-to-measure, yarding the rope bowstring tight when their friend tells them that they're coming off.
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if I read something like Molly's post, I rapidly ask "how do we know the injuries were diet driven", but if I'm not allowed to ask this question I just form a dim view of those telling me that like a fact but not allowing me to ask the questions
I mean, my immediate response to this is that its none of our business to be honest! If Molly (not exactly uninformed on these issues I would presume!), who knows her body and has coaches/ contacts to discuss things with, suggests they were then I don't think a default questioning tone is particularly relevant or appropriate, especially on a public forum. I don't think anyone talking about how diet affected their climbing/health is obliged to do a peer reviewed study before talking about it.
My default assumption would be that unless you go pretty hardcore (e.g. osteoporosis driven by hormonal disfunction from REDS) it will be incredibly difficult to know how much diet has contributed to any given injury or set of injuries. (this relates to my comment early on in the thread about injuries, which you labelled as disappointing/defensive). I'm very open to people showing me the light here if I'm wrong - either via studies or "expert" testimony, that's the kind of conversation I'd like more of around this (partly driven by being self-interested about whether my injury issues are related to historical dieting, though their pattern rules out any obvious short-term driver e.g. being light for a season). I also don't think that saying thing on social media accounts should make them immune from questioning. If it's none of our business then I assume that applies to the people commenting positively as well as anyone questioning whether it's realistic to think that we know how much injuries may or may not be diet driven in different situations. If someone wrote a post about how they dieted and didn't get injured it would be fair enough to question whether they just got lucky. Unfortunately, I wouldn't want to ask Molly about what leads her to believe the injury was diet driven because of the inevitable bullshit pile-on, so we're left with one less useful datapoint/anecdote in the world about whether dieting (and dieting to what level etc.) drives injury in climbing...
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I may be misreading, but I read Molly's post as falling as much into the "possibly bad dieting/weight decisions" as the "ED" camp, though it's hard to tell, which is why I don't think its easy (or worth it?) to separate these things out. Only difference is that Molly's post is more on the anti-diet bandwagon that the "defensive" posts from people more on the "diet can be useful" that some people didn't like
One concern I would have with the current anti-diet movement is that dieting becomes so frowned upon that genuine critical conversation about its possible risks and benefits is driven underground. E.g. I wouldn't dare raise the point in Molly's insta that her injury may or may not have had anything to do with weight (and I have pretty thick skin for internet arguments).. and I'm sure others wouldn't too, but will be thinking the same (i.e. discussion around this stuff is already not open, honest or critical. Pity bonjoy deleted his more argumentative post from a few days ago)
'As much' into bad diet camp I guess means also 'as much' into the ED camp as well which doesn't appear totally healthy. Reading her post it seems she wasn't particularly happy and she doesn't appear to directly link her injury to diet which sort of means that argument isn't particuarly relevant (that word again ;)).
I think she says some important and honest stuff about her own experience:
'the mental differences weigh a lot more. I still struggle with pushing down the bad habits of the past that creep up daily'
'But I also recognise that my strength is what helps me climb hard, my healthy body weight is what allows my cycle to continue as it should, and my decision to eat well is what means I can laugh and be happy with the people around me'
Does anyone really think a regime that means a 19 year old does not have normal menstruel cycle is anything other than pretty wrong?
I am not anti diet and I keep saying this - I just would rather we talked more about how we make a more open and supportative community that would allow people (particularly young people) to understand choices they make and get support if needed.
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As an example, when Mina had her accident on Rainshadow she ascribed the blame to a loose fitting harness.
I thought this would probably come up as I clicked post, but I do think the context is different as correct harness fit is not a mental and physical health issue in the same way as dieting and EDs and so is fine for public discussion for me.
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I am not anti diet and I keep saying this - I just would rather we talked more about how we make a more open and supportative community that would allow people (particularly young people) to understand choices they make and get support if needed.
I think all would agree this is absolutely what is needed. 'Open' necessarily means a complete and honest appraisal of the pros and cons, with at least the appearance that there isn't a pre-approved choice that will be supported and one which wont. That's not a defence of dieting, just of the importance of informed choice. It's tricky, nobody wants to be complicit in sending someone down a wrong path and I can see why there's a wish to narrativise things in a way which encourages people in a direction which seems objectively wiser. For many people this is the right approach. But Alex is right in saying that some people will instinctively take apart simple narratives and draw conclusions, which may not be the same conclusions they'd draw if they were given the unvarnished facts and left to make their own decision. Or better still encouraged to vocalise any embryonic desires they might hold and have them challenged on merit.
I think some might look at climbers condemning their past behaviour on dieting as pulling the ladder up after they've gained the benefits. These are probably the hard to reach individuals and the ones who wont be persuaded without hard factual debate.
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As an example, when Mina had her accident on Rainshadow she ascribed the blame to a loose fitting harness.
I thought this would probably come up as I clicked post, but I do think the context is different as correct harness fit is not a mental and physical health issue in the same way as dieting and EDs and so is fine for public discussion for me.
You missed the point by a country mile there :lol:
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You missed the point by a country mile there :lol:
Not intentionally, so please feel free to correct me (sure Will will be along shortly to do so)
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'As much' into bad diet camp I guess means also 'as much' into the ED camp as well which doesn't appear totally healthy.
I wrote "more" at first but edited it to piss people off less. The point is that her post seems to be about the possibly erroneous nature of dieting as well as EDs, yet on here some people seemed to not like it when the former was brought up in a conversation about the latter. But it's ok if it fits the narrative.
Reading her post it seems she wasn't particularly happy and she doesn't appear to directly link her injury to diet which sort of means that argument isn't particuarly relevant (that word again ;)).
"2017 was a successful season, but I was constantly at war with my body. If I wasn’t dieting, or if the number wasn’t going down on the scale I didn’t want ‘it’ enough. I wasn’t doing my job as an athlete (constantly dieting had become the same as going training).
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At the end of that season, my body told me enough was enough and I got badly injured. "
I'd say that 's close enough to attribution to not need to read between many lines!
'But I also recognise that my strength is what helps me climb hard, my healthy body weight is what allows my cycle to continue as it should, and my decision to eat well is what means I can laugh and be happy with the people around me'
Does anyone really think a regime that means a 19 year old does not have normal menstruel cycle is anything other than pretty wrong?
I couldn't tell from Molly's post whether she was saying her cycle has stopped in 2017, or just making a general point (or doesn't know e.g. shift from oral contraceptive, which seems to have had a chunk of attention over the past couple of years). But in answer to your Q (which is straw man) it would clearly be indicative of a significant problem, whether brought on by ED or getting training or dieting wrong or a messy combo of all the above.
I just would rather we talked more about how we make a more open and supportative community that would allow people (particularly young people) to understand choices they make and get support if needed.
See Bonjoy's post. This is exactly the point of most of my recent posts advocating being open, honest and laying out choices and potential consequences rather than trying to hide half of the discussion. On here is a lot better than on insta, obviously, since I can get away with actually raising points like these while having a sensible discussion... which is why I find posts about how such discussion is disappointing as, frankly, disappointing ;)
If Molly (not exactly uninformed on these issues I would presume!), who knows her body and has coaches/ contacts to discuss things with, suggests they were then I don't think a default questioning tone is particularly relevant or appropriate,
I didn't see you criticising TB's likely assumptions about other people when the situation was reversed (in fact only my response to him drew criticism). If we defer to people's good judgement then that cuts both ways...
Alex by ‘dieting’ are you strictly referring to calorie restriction, going to bed hungry, etc.? What’s your view around approaches based more around changing macros, ‘fuelling’, etc., is this coming under the heading of ‘dieting’ for you?
I'm probably conflating both all over the shop in my posts, might depend on the context if you have a specific post you were wondering about? I guess here I'm mostly thinking about it in a weight management context rather than a nutrient timing, macros, keto etc. context, but there's obviously overlap e.g. getting micros and macros wrong probably also impacts on injury risk (cutting weight on a nutrient-dense diet will likely be safer than cutting weight by cutting out all your meat and veg and just eating 3 boost bars, a can of coke and some speed).
For the avoidance of doubt, and in case any kids are reading, my broad view on losing weight is:
Dieting is a useful tool for many people (but not for all), but it probably inhibits gains and carries risks so make it the last tool you bust out and not the first. Those risks include injuries, being unhappy, and getting sucked into an eating disorder. If you're younger then long-term gains are there for the taking so you have more to lose and less to gain from controlling your weight, and certainly from making it a key part of your approach to climbing - bin it off and come back to reconsider it when you're older. If you do diet then don't try to hold the low weight indefinitely because this will probably screw you over. Don't do it too much, or you'll probably inhibit gains and increase injury risk. Be particularly cautious with it if you feel prone to obsession/addiction or struggle with mental health, because having an ED will suck ass. If you do do it, then make a plan and don't get sucked into going lower or for longer than the plan. If you feel yourself getting sucked in then try to talk to people about it, and defer to actual experts over shit people like me write on ukb or insta
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One thing that I don't think has cropped up here yet and is relevant to that atmosphere in which weight is discussed is that it can be very easy to make remarks about yourself that might be deeply unhelpful to other people. I'm probably what the person in the street might call "medium build" and happy with my weight and my climbing. However, in the past haven't thought twice about who might be listening and how they might feel about it when I've jokingly said insulting things about my own weight and its effect on whether I get up things or not ("I couldn't do <problem xxxxx>, I'm too much of a fat punter" etc.). In the light of this discussion, self-applied comments like this probably come across as crass and gratuitous, but I think they're quite common and a bit of a blind spot. Like the majority of people at the crag/wall, I'm not influential or an authority on climbing, training, diet etc., but I'm part of the background, and as such I probably shouldn't be slowly dripping unhelpful messages about weight and self-image into people's ears.
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For the avoidance of doubt, and in case any kids are reading, my broad view on losing weight is:
Dieting is a useful tool for many people (but not for all), but it probably inhibits gains and carries risks so make it the last tool you bust out and not the first. Those risks include injuries, being unhappy, and getting sucked into an eating disorder. If you're younger then long-term gains are there for the taking so you have more to lose and less to gain from controlling your weight, and certainly from making it a key part of your approach to climbing - bin it off and come back to reconsider it when you're older. If you do diet then don't try to hold the low weight indefinitely because this will probably screw you over. Don't do it too much, or you'll probably inhibit gains and increase injury risk. Be particularly cautious with it if you feel prone to obsession/addiction or struggle with mental health, because having an ED will suck ass. If you do do it, then make a plan and don't get sucked into going lower or for longer than the plan. If you feel yourself getting sucked in decide to lose any weight below a healthy norm then try to talk to people about it and set out the limits and red flags beforehand and make sure that somebody close to you keeps an eye on you, and defer to actual experts over shit people like me write on ukb or insta
This is the only sensible message (adjusted the end bit slightly).
The idea that we can prevent harm from weight loss/eating disorders by having an "open" conversation about all the bad things they can do and outlawing any conversation about the potential rewards (of weight loss, not full-blown very harmful EDs) will not work for the same reasons that preaching abstinence does not promote safe sex or reduce unwanted pregnancies.
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However, in the past haven't thought twice about who might be listening and how they might feel about it when I've jokingly said insulting things about my own weight
This is true for me too, and also for comments I'd make to friends. I should probably try to move away from that.
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I don't dish out personal abuse about likely-sensitive physical issues, and I'm quite prepared to be called up on it if I do.
Anyone tall than you are fair game though right?
I know I made this comment in jest, but this can easily apply to tall people, or short people. In my teenage years, I hated being the tall skinny clumsy kid, and was always ridiculed by peers and felt humiliated whenever there was a "shirts" vs "skins" game in sports. In the end I started doing some weight train to bulk out, and doing national service helped too.
However, I have female friends who are taller than average (and in some cases than their partners) and they have issues, one to the point that she has (subconsciously) developed a stoop to not appear so tall.
I totally appreciate this can be seen as whataboutery, but it's all part of same spectrum. People can develop complexes about many issues, not just physical, a lot of which they have no control over.
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Really not sure this going anywhere but here goes
But it's ok if it fits the narrative.
What narrative is that? MTS posted directly referencing the Light documentary about issues she had around diet , eating, body image and mood. Whether that is a bad diet, disordered eating or an ED is as you say not completely clear but given the context and fact she talks about mental issues, continuing struggle with bad habits etc it would seem to fit within the realm of disordered eating at least.
I'm trying hard not to be argumentative but if anything it feels that you're trying to fit MTS post/experience to your preferred narative.
Reading her post it seems she wasn't particularly happy and she doesn't appear to directly link her injury to diet which sort of means that argument isn't particuarly relevant (that word again ;)).
"2017 was a successful season, but I was constantly at war with my body. If I wasn’t dieting, or if the number wasn’t going down on the scale I didn’t want ‘it’ enough. I wasn’t doing my job as an athlete (constantly dieting had become the same as going training).
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At the end of that season, my body told me enough was enough and I got badly injured. "
I'd say that 's close enough to attribution to not need to read between many lines!
Full quote is
'At the end of that season, my body told me enough was enough and I got badly injured. Although it sucked, it forced me to realise that the way I was going on wasn’t sustainable - physically and mentally
Don't think it's at all clear that she's claiming definite corrolation between the injury and her diet, it feels much more like a general statement about how she felt mentally and physically.
'But I also recognise that my strength is what helps me climb hard, my healthy body weight is what allows my cycle to continue as it should, and my decision to eat well is what means I can laugh and be happy with the people around me'
Does anyone really think a regime that means a 19 year old does not have normal menstruel cycle is anything other than pretty wrong?
I couldn't tell from Molly's post whether she was saying her cycle has stopped in 2017, or just making a general point (or doesn't know e.g. shift from oral contraceptive, which seems to have had a chunk of attention over the past couple of years). But in answer to your Q (which is straw man) it would clearly be indicative of a significant problem, whether brought on by ED or getting training or dieting wrong or a messy combo of all the above.
What kind of general point might Molly be making? Again you seem to be potentially applying your own narrative to the post, its pretty clear that she feels that since 2017 she has changed her body weight and eating habits in a way that leaves her healthier physically and mentally.
And the question was rhetorical not a straw man, driven by the fact that you had seemingly ignored that part of the post, and indicated that pretty much everyone posting here would obviously agree with it.
Hopefully you don't feel that it not being able to question a young women on social media about her contraceptive history is part of the lack of 'genuine critical conversation' ::) (for avoidence of doubt that's sarcastic exaggeration on my part, not a serious point!)
For the avoidance of doubt, and in case any kids are reading, my broad view on losing weight is:
Dieting is a useful tool for many people (but not for all), but it probably inhibits gains and carries risks so make it the last tool you bust out and not the first. Those risks include injuries, being unhappy, and getting sucked into an eating disorder. If you're younger then long-term gains are there for the taking so you have more to lose and less to gain from controlling your weight, and certainly from making it a key part of your approach to climbing - bin it off and come back to reconsider it when you're older. If you do diet then don't try to hold the low weight indefinitely because this will probably screw you over. Don't do it too much, or you'll probably inhibit gains and increase injury risk. Be particularly cautious with it if you feel prone to obsession/addiction or struggle with mental health, because having an ED will suck ass. If you do do it, then make a plan and don't get sucked into going lower or for longer than the plan. If you feel yourself getting sucked in then try to talk to people about it, and defer to actual experts over shit people like me write on ukb or insta
We probably agree on most of that.
If there's any straw man going around here I would suggest that its the argument that there is some sort of anti-diet attitude that says you're not allowed to discuss the impact of lower weight on climbing performance - I've seen very little if any of that position but a large number of posts arguing against that perceived position.
You pick again on the fact that I describe this discussion as disappointing - I would probably stick by that. While I think there has been some pretty useful discussions and it's been good mannered and sometimes thoughtful I feel it has been somewhat lacking in discussion of the actual disordered eating/ ED issue, its impacts and what we might do. Little about danger signs for disordered eating/EDs, how young people are coached, whether coaches have appropriate information about EDs, people's knowledge / understanding of EDs (and disordered eating), how we might make it easier to discuss these issues etc. None of these things have easy answers but I would have hoped it's the sort of stuff that people might want to discuss.
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'As much' into bad diet camp I guess means also 'as much' into the ED camp as well which doesn't appear totally healthy.
I wrote "more" at first but edited it to piss people off less. The point is that her post seems to be about the possibly erroneous nature of dieting as well as EDs, yet on here some people seemed to not like it when the former was brought up in a conversation about the latter. But it's ok if it fits the narrative.
Reading her post it seems she wasn't particularly happy and she doesn't appear to directly link her injury to diet which sort of means that argument isn't particuarly relevant (that word again ;)).
"2017 was a successful season, but I was constantly at war with my body. If I wasn’t dieting, or if the number wasn’t going down on the scale I didn’t want ‘it’ enough. I wasn’t doing my job as an athlete (constantly dieting had become the same as going training).
.
At the end of that season, my body told me enough was enough and I got badly injured. "
I'd say that 's close enough to attribution to not need to read between many lines!
'But I also recognise that my strength is what helps me climb hard, my healthy body weight is what allows my cycle to continue as it should, and my decision to eat well is what means I can laugh and be happy with the people around me'
Does anyone really think a regime that means a 19 year old does not have normal menstruel cycle is anything other than pretty wrong?
I couldn't tell from Molly's post whether she was saying her cycle has stopped in 2017, or just making a general point (or doesn't know e.g. shift from oral contraceptive, which seems to have had a chunk of attention over the past couple of years). But in answer to your Q (which is straw man) it would clearly be indicative of a significant problem, whether brought on by ED or getting training or dieting wrong or a messy combo of all the above.
I just would rather we talked more about how we make a more open and supportative community that would allow people (particularly young people) to understand choices they make and get support if needed.
See Bonjoy's post. This is exactly the point of most of my recent posts advocating being open, honest and laying out choices and potential consequences rather than trying to hide half of the discussion. On here is a lot better than on insta, obviously, since I can get away with actually raising points like these while having a sensible discussion... which is why I find posts about how such discussion is disappointing as, frankly, disappointing ;)
If Molly (not exactly uninformed on these issues I would presume!), who knows her body and has coaches/ contacts to discuss things with, suggests they were then I don't think a default questioning tone is particularly relevant or appropriate,
I didn't see you criticising TB's likely assumptions about other people when the situation was reversed (in fact only my response to him drew criticism). If we defer to people's good judgement then that cuts both ways...
Alex by ‘dieting’ are you strictly referring to calorie restriction, going to bed hungry, etc.? What’s your view around approaches based more around changing macros, ‘fuelling’, etc., is this coming under the heading of ‘dieting’ for you?
I'm probably conflating both all over the shop in my posts, might depend on the context if you have a specific post you were wondering about? I guess here I'm mostly thinking about it in a weight management context rather than a nutrient timing, macros, keto etc. context, but there's obviously overlap e.g. getting micros and macros wrong probably also impacts on injury risk (cutting weight on a nutrient-dense diet will likely be safer than cutting weight by cutting out all your meat and veg and just eating 3 boost bars, a can of coke and some speed).
For the avoidance of doubt, and in case any kids are reading, my broad view on losing weight is:
Dieting is a useful tool for many people (but not for all), but it probably inhibits gains and carries risks so make it the last tool you bust out and not the first. Those risks include injuries, being unhappy, and getting sucked into an eating disorder. If you're younger then long-term gains are there for the taking so you have more to lose and less to gain from controlling your weight, and certainly from making it a key part of your approach to climbing - bin it off and come back to reconsider it when you're older. If you do diet then don't try to hold the low weight indefinitely because this will probably screw you over. Don't do it too much, or you'll probably inhibit gains and increase injury risk. Be particularly cautious with it if you feel prone to obsession/addiction or struggle with mental health, because having an ED will suck ass. If you do do it, then make a plan and don't get sucked into going lower or for longer than the plan. If you feel yourself getting sucked in then try to talk to people about it, and defer to actual experts over shit people like me write on ukb or insta
I'm with Barrows on this one, he may be near psychotic in his religious delusions of lattice and energy systems manufactured tedium, but he should be left alone to get on with dieting and body monitoring in the name of performance without the risk of having his balls broken by the 'climbing community'.
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'As much' into bad diet camp I guess means also 'as much' into the ED camp as well which doesn't appear totally healthy.
I wrote "more" at first but edited it to piss people off less. The point is that her post seems to be about the possibly erroneous nature of dieting as well as EDs, yet on here some people seemed to not like it when the former was brought up in a conversation about the latter. But it's ok if it fits the narrative.
Reading her post it seems she wasn't particularly happy and she doesn't appear to directly link her injury to diet which sort of means that argument isn't particuarly relevant (that word again ;)).
"2017 was a successful season, but I was constantly at war with my body. If I wasn’t dieting, or if the number wasn’t going down on the scale I didn’t want ‘it’ enough. I wasn’t doing my job as an athlete (constantly dieting had become the same as going training).
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At the end of that season, my body told me enough was enough and I got badly injured. "
I'd say that 's close enough to attribution to not need to read between many lines!
'But I also recognise that my strength is what helps me climb hard, my healthy body weight is what allows my cycle to continue as it should, and my decision to eat well is what means I can laugh and be happy with the people around me'
Does anyone really think a regime that means a 19 year old does not have normal menstruel cycle is anything other than pretty wrong?
I couldn't tell from Molly's post whether she was saying her cycle has stopped in 2017, or just making a general point (or doesn't know e.g. shift from oral contraceptive, which seems to have had a chunk of attention over the past couple of years). But in answer to your Q (which is straw man) it would clearly be indicative of a significant problem, whether brought on by ED or getting training or dieting wrong or a messy combo of all the above.
I just would rather we talked more about how we make a more open and supportative community that would allow people (particularly young people) to understand choices they make and get support if needed.
See Bonjoy's post. This is exactly the point of most of my recent posts advocating being open, honest and laying out choices and potential consequences rather than trying to hide half of the discussion. On here is a lot better than on insta, obviously, since I can get away with actually raising points like these while having a sensible discussion... which is why I find posts about how such discussion is disappointing as, frankly, disappointing ;)
If Molly (not exactly uninformed on these issues I would presume!), who knows her body and has coaches/ contacts to discuss things with, suggests they were then I don't think a default questioning tone is particularly relevant or appropriate,
I didn't see you criticising TB's likely assumptions about other people when the situation was reversed (in fact only my response to him drew criticism). If we defer to people's good judgement then that cuts both ways...
Alex by ‘dieting’ are you strictly referring to calorie restriction, going to bed hungry, etc.? What’s your view around approaches based more around changing macros, ‘fuelling’, etc., is this coming under the heading of ‘dieting’ for you?
I'm probably conflating both all over the shop in my posts, might depend on the context if you have a specific post you were wondering about? I guess here I'm mostly thinking about it in a weight management context rather than a nutrient timing, macros, keto etc. context, but there's obviously overlap e.g. getting micros and macros wrong probably also impacts on injury risk (cutting weight on a nutrient-dense diet will likely be safer than cutting weight by cutting out all your meat and veg and just eating 3 boost bars, a can of coke and some speed).
For the avoidance of doubt, and in case any kids are reading, my broad view on losing weight is:
Dieting is a useful tool for many people (but not for all), but it probably inhibits gains and carries risks so make it the last tool you bust out and not the first. Those risks include injuries, being unhappy, and getting sucked into an eating disorder. If you're younger then long-term gains are there for the taking so you have more to lose and less to gain from controlling your weight, and certainly from making it a key part of your approach to climbing - bin it off and come back to reconsider it when you're older. If you do diet then don't try to hold the low weight indefinitely because this will probably screw you over. Don't do it too much, or you'll probably inhibit gains and increase injury risk. Be particularly cautious with it if you feel prone to obsession/addiction or struggle with mental health, because having an ED will suck ass. If you do do it, then make a plan and don't get sucked into going lower or for longer than the plan. If you feel yourself getting sucked in then try to talk to people about it, and defer to actual experts over shit people like me write on ukb or insta
I'm with Barrows on this one, he may be near psychotic in his religious delusions of lattice and energy systems manufactured tedium, but he should be left alone to get on with dieting and body monitoring in the name of performance without the risk of having his balls broken by the 'climbing community'.
Welcome back, Dan.
On the off-chance you're not Dan then I apologise and welcome anyway.
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What kind of general point might Molly be making?
That sufficient fuelling is a requisite for a fully functioning endocrine system.
Don't think it's at all clear that she's claiming definite corrolation between the injury and her diet
We read that post quite differently.
I've seen very little if any of that position
All my post in this respect have essentially been aimed at you and Jim on here, and insta in general. I don't care what people want to say, so long as it can be interrogated (which it can't on insta, but can on here, until people give each other shit for sounding defensive, or not liking their tone). But you're right, I'm definitely projecting some on my thoughts on the sycophantic bandwagon bullshit of insta culture around both this and everything else into my criticism of your and Jim's posts, and it's not fair to blame you two for all the dumb people on insta! :sorry: :chair:
While I think there has been some pretty useful discussions and it's been good mannered and sometimes thoughtful I feel it has been somewhat lacking in discussion of the actual disordered eating/ ED issue, its impacts and what we might do. Little about danger signs for disordered eating/EDs, how young people are coached, whether coaches have appropriate information about EDs, people's knowledge / understanding of EDs (and disordered eating), how we might make it easier to discuss these issues etc. None of these things have easy answers but I would have hoped it's the sort of stuff that people might want to discuss.
Yeah, all sounds interesting and important - smash on! On coaching I wanted to post something about certain coaches with historically a bad rep but then realised my confidence in defamation laws around hearsay wasn't high enough to post.
Part of the issue may be that I don't feel like we ever really got anywhere with defining where eating disorders begin and things like erroneous dieting, overtraining, or consciously choosing to sacrifice health for performance end...
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In order to establish where or when an eating disorder might be with beginning someone. I suspect it would need a mental health professional to spend an hour or two taking a history with that person even then it’s not an exact science.
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https://freedfromed.co.uk/
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As Ian says I get the feeling that this isn't going anywhere and may be time to move it on to the points he raises in his final paragraph, no point going over old ground to excess. (I intended this to only be a paragraph and got on a roll! :lol:)
As a finisher from me, I think in essence I find the prevailing attitude to this issue to be quite laissez faire and detached. I think this is combination of a lot of those posting on here being of a contrarian, data driven and critical thinking bent, which is no bad thing per se. However as I said above I do think this results in quite a significant empathy gap which I know isn't intended, but is definitely my perception.
I also think that the population here, overwhelmingly male and middle aged, perhaps struggles to fully relate to the issue in the same way as they do to say, depression (see the admirable black Dog thread and club). Eating disorders affect everyone but young women are especially at risk, so perhaps it's natural that there is a gap here, but i do think it's something we need to be aware of. As NaoB wrote above, more female voices on this would be really useful.
I have first hand experience of learning more about EDs when someone close to me suffered from one. I was incredibly ignorant about what they were and even more ignorant about how to help them. I learned, but I wish I'd known more and could have been more useful! Things are a lot better societally now but I do think we have quite a way to go. This forum is quite a high performance bubble in climbing I think and so perhaps sees weight loss for climbing purposes in a different way to others.
That said we all know more about EDs than we did a few days ago so that's progress!
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https://freedfromed.co.uk/
Looks a good resource. Can you add any further context to it? The ‘about’ says they hope to link to 20 services by 2020. Any update - used in Manchester hospital trusts for example? Thanks.
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Perhaps an inappropriate comparison but I am oddly reminded of this by the arguments of dieting as a precursor to an ED versus it being a useful tool for elite performance [not that I'm judging anyone's positions in this respect.... I just like an excuse for Brasseye links].
https://youtu.be/4xhdPmu2dEA?t=42 (https://youtu.be/4xhdPmu2dEA?t=42)
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Part of the issue may be that I don't feel like we ever really got anywhere with defining where eating disorders begin and things like erroneous dieting, overtraining, or consciously choosing to sacrifice health for performance end...
I’d argue mental disorders cannot be neatly defined by behaviours. Which is what webbo said. I am sure you could have 2 people present identical behaviours and appearance, one of whom would shortly return to healthy eating and the other was no longer in control. We can’t tie it up that neatly. You could identify some big red flags though.
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Perhaps an inappropriate comparison but I am oddly reminded of this by the arguments of dieting as a precursor to an ED versus it being a useful tool for elite performance [not that I'm judging anyone's positions in this respect.... I just like an excuse for Brasseye links].
https://youtu.be/4xhdPmu2dEA?t=42 (https://youtu.be/4xhdPmu2dEA?t=42)
:clap2: Alex is definitely safe - his middle class credentials are impeccable
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:lol:
I'm nothing if not effortlessly middle class
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. You could identify some big red flags though.
What would red flags be for those losing control?
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Well that it is a really good question and I am not qualified to pronounce on what is/isn't a worrying sign. Which is why my post stopped there!
However.. anything that purges is a straight no-no in my mind, like making yourself sick or using laxatives when not constipated. Obsessional thinking around restricting food consumption and decreasing levels of satisfaction with life generally/self-image would be a worry to me too.
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Driven exercise is purging too
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Passing thought that this section of the forum is called diet, training and injuries. Perhaps given what we seem to have all acknowledged that training should definitely come before diet in the "toolkit", is this worth a rename?
One of those things which some might roll their eyes at, but imagine how it would look from the perspective of someone who is on a slippery slope.
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So call it 'training, diet and injuries' ?
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Passing thought that this section of the forum is called diet, training and injuries. Perhaps given what we seem to have all acknowledged that training should definitely come before diet in the "toolkit", is this worth a rename?
One of those things which some might roll their eyes at, but imagine how it would look from the perspective of someone who is on a slippery slope.
You are conflating “Diet” with “Dieting” and the former is every bit as important as the latter. Keeping your Macros in line and ensuring sufficient calorie and nutritional intake, is both important and sensible.
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So call it 'training, diet and injuries' ?
I dunno, I haven't seen many threads about diet lately anyway. Might be that it doesn't need explicitly mentioning.
OMM I take your point, but it sort of goes back to the earlier discussion, which do you think is the more likely interpretation from someone struggling with their eating?
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"Training, nutrition, and injuries"
Training should come first as it's the main focus. I think nutrition is a more suitable term as it covers what really matters - being optimally nutrient-supplied for climbing prowess (not the same as diet which can be construed as dieting!).
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Passing thought that this section of the forum is called diet, training and injuries. Perhaps given what we seem to have all acknowledged that training should definitely come before diet in the "toolkit", is this worth a rename?
One of those things which some might roll their eyes at, but imagine how it would look from the perspective of someone who is on a slippery slope.
One of those passing thoughts that should be left to pass. 😆
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And yet here we are, with Fiend having suggested an improvement. It is obviously only very minor but can't see the downside.
"Training, nutrition, and injuries"
Training should come first as it's the main focus. I think nutrition is a more suitable term as it covers what really matters - being optimally nutrient-supplied for climbing prowess (not the same as diet which can be construed as dieting!).
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INJURIES, training, and nutrition
would be most appropriate weighting I'd say
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INJURIES, training, and nutrition
would be most appropriate weighting I'd say
A YMMV issue really - for me, right now, training and nutrition are perennial issues, so I'd put them first. My injury history is generally sporadic lumps 'n' bumps, or mild overuse issues that have been reasonably well managed with judicious rest.
Mind you, give it a few years and I reckon injury advice will be the priority. For me, the early-to-mid-to-late-40s transition is increasingly feeling like a sailing ship, bourne slowly leeward onto a rocky shore called "pain".
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This article about psychiatrists anticipating a significant rise in eating disorders as a result of the oresssures and isolation caused by the pandemic seems relevant to put here:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/11/doctors-warn-of-tsunami-of-pandemic-eating-disorders
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It’s funny that the Guardians pro lockdown brainwashing of the middle classes / liberal elite and their Twitter hit squad including the good old George bully boy Monibot choose to raise concerns about exactly the mental health crisis that they are serving to generate. There are some true independent voices on these matters including Alison Pollock who speaks to reason and supports pro-social public health policies. Lockdown has led to a wide ranging effect on mental health mostly in which previously well but vulnerable people are tipped over into being unwell while there is an alleviation of shame and guilt for those already ‘locked down’ by their mental health prior to the pandemic
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It’s funny that the Guardians pro lockdown brainwashing of the middle classes / liberal elite and their Twitter hit squad including the good old George bully boy Monibot choose to raise concerns about exactly the mental health crisis that they are serving to generate. There are some true independent voices on these matters including Alison Pollock who speaks to reason and supports pro-social public health policies. Lockdown has led to a wide ranging effect on mental health mostly in which previously well but vulnerable people are tipped over into being unwell while there is an alleviation of shame and guilt for those already ‘locked down’ by their mental health prior to the pandemic
Wow.
Somebody’s not coping well with all this and is lashing out in a bit of a toddler tantrum.
Most of us are feeling the effects of isolation and curtailment of our social interactions. I’m pretty sure most of us are happy to share time and support, through the avenues open to us, on line, over the phone, socially distanced exercise etc. It’s not even entirely altruistic, since most will also derive mutual benefit from a supporting role, too.
But, your hostility is only deepening your isolation.
Grasping at straws and fashioning them into an approximation of a man, to try and support your flimsy arguments.
You need to step out from behind these silly faux personas, it’s not helping you. Running around poking your finger into Wasp nests, might feel rebellious and defiant, but it’s actually a self destructive path. It achieves little beyond pain for the poker and mild irritation, tinged with pity, for the audience.
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I don't think anyone disagrees that lockdown is shit for lots of things and lots of people... But you need to have a better plan/proposal or it's meaningless...
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I don't think anyone disagrees that lockdown is shit for lots of things and lots of people... But you need to have a better plan/proposal or it's meaningless...
Probs one for the covid thread but relevant here too. There’s no good answers I agree with Allyson Pollock on lots of points. https://allysonpollock.com/?page_id=2903
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It’s funny that the Guardians pro lockdown brainwashing of the middle classes / liberal elite and their Twitter hit squad including the good old George bully boy Monibot choose to raise concerns about exactly the mental health crisis that they are serving to generate. There are some true independent voices on these matters including Alison Pollock who speaks to reason and supports pro-social public health policies. Lockdown has led to a wide ranging effect on mental health mostly in which previously well but vulnerable people are tipped over into being unwell while there is an alleviation of shame and guilt for those already ‘locked down’ by their mental health prior to the pandemic
Wow.
Somebody’s not coping well with all this and is lashing out in a bit of a toddler tantrum.
Most of us are feeling the effects of isolation and curtailment of our social interactions. I’m pretty sure most of us are happy to share time and support, through the avenues open to us, on line, over the phone, socially distanced exercise etc. It’s not even entirely altruistic, since most will also derive mutual benefit from a supporting role, too.
But, your hostility is only deepening your isolation.
Grasping at straws and fashioning them into an approximation of a man, to try and support your flimsy arguments.
You need to step out from behind these silly faux personas, it’s not helping you. Running around poking your finger into Wasp nests, might feel rebellious and defiant, but it’s actually a self destructive path. It achieves little beyond pain for the poker and mild irritation, tinged with pity, for the audience.
Plattsy, mate, you are so far off the mark.
But fine, belittle my offer.
I’ve been trying with Dan for a long time.
Encouraging him down his rabbit hole is simply wrong of you.
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I'm not encouraging anyone down or up any rabbit hole. So attributing something to me that I'm not doing isn't fair.
If I've misunderstood your post and you aren't likening the post you've responded to to a toddler's tantrum which to me would seem to be belittling then I apologise.
:offtopic: :sorry:
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I don't think anyone disagrees that lockdown is shit for lots of things and lots of people... But you need to have a better plan/proposal or it's meaningless...
Probs one for the covid thread but relevant here too. There’s no good answers I agree with Allyson Pollock on lots of points. https://allysonpollock.com/?page_id=2903
It is better in the other thread.
The problem with her approach, is the idea that education is the answer.
That, if only enough people understood the risks and mitigation routes, we could manage the situation through communication action and common sense.
It probably is for many, but most of them, those who would be swayed by education and try to act in a sensible fashion, already are and have taken the “education” available to heart already.
There is, unfortunately, a hefty chunk of society, quite able to ignore reality and choose comfortable lies over uncomfortable facts. This is demonstrated widely around the world in various political, religious and health related situations, daily, up to and including one type of religious group attempting to wipe out entire populations for being the “wrong type” of the same religious group.
I’d love to be able to escape lockdown and draconian, blanket (and therefore, ill fitting) measures, not to mention loathing to support this government, but I don’t see a workable alternative.
Can you remember, myself and my family are being hit rather hard by the shutdown? If we don’t lose the business, we will be very lucky and our personal debt is rising rapidly to try and stave it off (currently we owe £25k that we didn’t a year ago, having finally got the business debt free and in profit, last January). Add to that four teenagers going stir crazy, one who was supposed to be sitting GCSE’s in a couple months and Polly having to continue to work as a lettings agent (and having to visit some pretty unsanitary properties, vulnerable people of all descriptions etc etc. Whilst her bosses and long time friends (who are a couple) manage Alan’s impending death (cancer), whilst trying not to infect him and give him his last few weeks with his wife and kids and ... so on and so forth).
So, yeah, I get the anger and the frustration, but doing nothing or hoping that “people” will be sensible, would be way worse.
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I'm not encouraging anyone down or up any rabbit hole. So attributing something to me that I'm not doing isn't fair.
If I've misunderstood your post and you aren't likening the post you've responded to to a toddler's tantrum which to me would seem to be belittling then I apologise.
:offtopic: :sorry:
No, you are correct, I am, because it is.
I think you should take it (the post) within the context of his other posts and not just under the current persona.
(From that point of view, it fits well in this thread, at least within the broader mental health aspects of such a thread. Not least because, if I’ve understood anything from the discussion here, it’s that EDs are complex and require sensitivity, awareness and a more considered approach to language etc in mine or my staff’s coaching practices, but beyond that, the issue requires such a detailed knowledge of an individuals life and history, it is not within our abilities to “do” much more).
I get that I am assuming that Mr Loo3e is Dan, so might be myself way off, but the previous few months and multiple “Dans” up to this point, paint a difficult picture to view.
*For reference, the Guardian (and Monbiot in particular) get up my nose too, but the first few lines of the post I responded to, was far more “belittling” of “people’s” opinions or arguments, than my response.
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. You could identify some big red flags though.
What would red flags be for those losing control?
Similar to others here I have no qualifications to provide any sort of definitive answer to this question but can give a few thoughts.
One place to get a view is something like the self-referral form from SYEDA (South Yorkshire Eating Disorder Association). Note they don't deal with more severe eating disorders, for example people who 'Are at a severely low weight (BMI 17.5 or below)'. Also worth noting that their waiting list is currently closed to large parts of south Yorkshire due to overwhelming demand.!
https://www.syeda.org.uk/self-referral-form
A few things that might pick out as particularly relevant to sports people:
- Are you purging more than 5 times per week? (making yourself sick, exercising in excess of an hour/using laxatives)
- Do you worry that you have lost control over your eating?
- Do you ever use exercise as a way of coping with difficult thoughts and feelings?
- Do you believe yourself to be overweight when others say you are underweight?
- Would you say that food dominates your life?
From my experience (n=2), particular things visible externally were obsessive behaviour around controlling (as well as simply reducing) food together with exercise habits including guilt around not exercising. With some overreaching on my part I could imagine that in climbers changes towards increasing volume of exercise without obvious objectives/significantly increased aerobic exercise could be a bit of flag since this wouldn't necessarily form part of a well thought through climbing specific training plan.
Another very specific thing in my personal experiences (both outdoor athletes) was really feeling the cold, maybe related to underfueling? Something that has improved significantly when recovering.
I think people with disordered eating / EDs often have anxiety and guilt as well so maybe changes in behaviour around how/when they eat could be something to aware of e.g. always wanting to prepare own food, avoiding eating meals at the same time as other people, avoiding social situations involving food.
Just to be clear again, I have no real expertise so above is just some of my thoughts based on personal experience and attempts at self-education. Also aware that it's clear that a number of these sort of behaviours could be explained by people managing the diet/training in a controlled fashion - none of this has easy / obvious answers.
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I hadn't thought about guilt over not exercising as being part of it all. I wonder if that's one of the more common traits of EDs that doesn't get discussed as much? I certainly feel guilty if I don't feel I've done enough exercise in a given period of time.
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I hadn't thought about guilt over not exercising as being part of it all. I wonder if that's one of the more common traits of EDs that doesn't get discussed as much? I certainly feel guilty if I don't feel I've done enough exercise in a given period of time.
Honestly, I felt I ticked many of Ian’s red flags, possibly all. However, I don’t have an ED.
Even though I will feel guilty and restless, I will rest today, despite planning a test/benchmark run this afternoon. Because I started getting leg craps in my sleep, last night, because I’ve over trained and not rested sufficiently. I even allowed myself a McDonalds Breakfast this morning.
I will and do feel “guilty” of not being able to push through.
This is just me, I have always been this way, it is only age that has taught me when to stop, part of me knowing the rest will advance me more than pushing through would. But it’s an internal conflict and require the subversion of my inner obsession to trick it into pacifying itself and juggling mental processes such that I don’t disappear up my own paradoxical arse.
Having that sort of personality and having experienced the odd life changing trauma, I can see how crossing the Rubicon into some sort of obsessive, compulsive, mental illness, is incredibly, scarily, easy.
There but for the merest of chances, go I.
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One can obsessions about exercise without having an eating disorder. I would suggest on that list Ian posted it would about how many of those red flags you tick and also which ones. If I was doing an initial mental health assessment on someone and they said they worried about if they had not exercised and they regularly exercised for more than an hour. I would explore it further but it wouldn’t ring alarm bells in the same way if someone reported taking laxatives when not needed and eating tissue paper in order not to feel hungry.
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From my experience (n=2), particular things visible externally were obsessive behaviour around controlling (as well as simply reducing) food together with exercise habits including guilt around not exercising. With some overreaching on my part I could imagine that in climbers changes towards increasing volume of exercise without obvious objectives/significantly increased aerobic exercise could be a bit of flag since this wouldn't necessarily form part of a well thought through climbing specific training plan.
I think people with disordered eating / EDs often have anxiety and guilt as well so maybe changes in behaviour around how/when they eat could be something to aware of e.g. always wanting to prepare own food, avoiding eating meals at the same time as other people, avoiding social situations involving food.
That all makes sense, thanks. I struggle more with the list as I train for >1hr all the time, I feel like I've lost control of my eating every time I eat goat's cheese or lindor :lol:, and exercising to cope with difficult thoughts seems pretty standard.
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I struggle more with the list as I train for >1hr all the time,
Likewise; perhaps this just emphasises how weird we are compared to the general population though. Among my friends who don't climb, I don't think many of them would routinely exercise for longer than an hour, so if they started doing it out of the blue it might be a warning sign.
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From my experience (n=2), particular things visible externally were obsessive behaviour around controlling (as well as simply reducing) food together with exercise habits including guilt around not exercising. With some overreaching on my part I could imagine that in climbers changes towards increasing volume of exercise without obvious objectives/significantly increased aerobic exercise could be a bit of flag since this wouldn't necessarily form part of a well thought through climbing specific training plan.
I think people with disordered eating / EDs often have anxiety and guilt as well so maybe changes in behaviour around how/when they eat could be something to aware of e.g. always wanting to prepare own food, avoiding eating meals at the same time as other people, avoiding social situations involving food.
That all makes sense, thanks. I struggle more with the list as I train for >1hr all the time, I feel like I've lost control of my eating every time I eat goat's cheese or lindor :lol:, and exercising to cope with difficult thoughts seems pretty standard.
You’ve had it Barrows, somebody call the thought police!
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Ian's points are interesting but do highlight the difficulty of interpreting behaviour.
I would be astonished if there is anyone on here who does not regularly exercise for over an hour for example. Shark even has an annual project dedicated to the half hour version every day! Any competitive athlete etc
To my- unqualified- mind, it's the purpose of the exercise that needs discerning. Is it weight control? Control seems to me a key issue within an eating disorder. Does someone exhibit distress if they can't maintain their regular control over weight through exercise sessions or food?
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I struggle more with the list as I train for >1hr all the time,
Likewise; perhaps this just emphasises how weird we are compared to the general population though. Among my friends who don't climb, I don't think many of them would routinely exercise for longer than an hour, so if they started doing it out of the blue it might be a warning sign.
Most of my 1 hour+ sessions are taken up playing online scrabble whilst normal people (muggles) would be continuously at it on the treadmill
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Most of my 1 hour+ sessions are taken up playing online scrabble whilst normal people (muggles) would be continuously at it on the treadmill
Our (superior and magical!) exercise is less continuous, true. Among the people I know who go running I think it would be unusual for their 'normal' run to be longer than an hour for example.
Edit; think this from mrjr is the key.
To my- unqualified- mind, it's the purpose of the exercise that needs discerning. Is it weight control?
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You guys just need to do more aero cap ;)
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You guys just need to do more aero cap ;)
Aerocap on a fingerboard, even I haven't sunk to those depths yet...
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Even though I will feel guilty and restless, I will rest today, despite planning a test/benchmark run this afternoon. Because I started getting leg craps in my sleep, last night, because I’ve over trained and not rested sufficiently.
This is definitely a very worrying sign that you've been overdoing it....
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In reply to lots of people.
The 'exercising in excess of one hour' is in context of using exercise as a form of purging so yes obviously state of mind has to be part of any disussion (as does type of exercise I guess, 2 hours at the wall the same as an hour's hard running). And yes 'just' obsessive exercise is not sufficient not indicate an ED but I think it can quite often be part of a combined disordered perspective around food, weight and exercise.
For a different personal perspective on EDs and exercise:
https://www.fortheloveofclimbing.com/episodes/episode-9-shit-in-the-woods
Podcast (also transcript on the link) interview with a swimmer turned runner and then climber who had some pretty serious problems by the sound of it, just one quote below..
'I think the most detrimental one is you learn to lie really well. And it impacts a lot of relationships. People get really worried about you! They see you at the gym, they’re like, “Why are you here? Weren’t you already here earlier?” And you’re like, “Oh, I was looking for you.” It would get to this point where if I sat still for too long, I would panic and I would make up reasons why I needed to go. The university I went to had this huge lake: if I was out at the lake with my friends, swimming around wasn’t enough. I would be like, “Guys, I forgot I had some homework to do! Somebody needs to drive me back right now. I need to do an hour at the gym.” Being outside wasn’t enough. To this day, I refuse to play card games because it got in my mind: I was sitting, and sitting isn’t good. Like, you can’t sit. Sitting is not active. You’re not burning any calories.'
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Most of my 1 hour+ sessions are taken up playing online scrabble whilst normal people (muggles) would be continuously at it on the treadmill
Our (superior and magical!) exercise is less continuous, true. Among the people I know who go running I think it would be unusual for their 'normal' run to be longer than an hour for example.
Edit; think this from mrjr is the key.
To my- unqualified- mind, it's the purpose of the exercise that needs discerning. Is it weight control?
I did an hour on the treadmill yesterday, then went and did 30 min Aerocap on the Lattice board after a half hour bouldering warm up.
I’m fucked, aren’t I.
Didn’t get off the couch this morning though. Now heading for a coaching session with the kids, I wonder if I can resist...
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Some more thoughts on the nature of some of these discussions (sorry!).
I think it pretty unsuprising that the sort of people who post on here and are involved in an obsessive sport like climbing could tick some of these flags and it's not possible to identify whether these are an issue with out an undertstanding of the motivations, control; and mental health impacts of these behaiviours. The aim of having a more open disussions about sort of issues that can occur is so individuals potentially at risk and those who could support them might have a chance to avoid ending up in unhealthy behaiviours or to provide help them to recover sooner.
Taking it away from people on here the curious climber podcast had and interview by Mina with Dave MacLeod and towards the end they talked about diet and Dave said 'I'm sensitive about discussing disordered eating in sport in general, because although underdiagnosis is a problem that needs to be addressed I also think overdiagnosis is possible as well'. He then went on to talk about an athlete pushing himself to his limits as a necessarily obsessive behaviour with fine lines between healthy and the wrong path and he and Mina went on to discuss over-pathologisation and owning your behaiviour.
My position would be underdiagnosis (together with lack of knowledge / awareness) is the more significant issue and the one we should be talking about more . My potentially simplistic (and maybe biased) view is the main risk of overdiagnosis /over-pathologisation is that some sports people might have to take time explaining that they are in control and making conscious decisions about risks and benefits of their behaviour which seems less significant than the risks of underdiagnosis. Happy to hear about examples to the contrary.
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The danger with over diagnosis is people with real issues go undercover.
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The danger with over diagnosis is people with real issues go undercover.
That makes some sense - do you feel from your experience that over diagnosis is an issue? My limited experience is that getting any diagnosis can be problematic, after we persuaded Amy that should seek some medical help her experience with the University health service was very negative and she felt she'd been told she wasn't ill enough or skinny enough.
Isn't one of the biggest issues with people going undercover the secrecy often part of EDs together with the potential stigma of very idea of having an ED.
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The danger with over diagnosis is people with real issues go undercover.
That makes some sense - do you feel from your experience that over diagnosis is an issue? My limited experience is that getting any diagnosis can be problematic, after we persuaded Amy that should seek some medical help her experience with the University health service was very negative and she felt she'd been told she wasn't ill enough or skinny enough.
Isn't one of the biggest issues with people going undercover the secrecy often part of EDs together with the potential stigma of very idea of having an ED.
This applies across the spectrum of mental health issues, isn’t new and is likely to remain an issue.
When I was diagnosed with PTSD (in 1996!), I’d been trying to talk to my, supposedly trained, divisional officer for some weeks about my issues. It took an observant, female, Medical assistant, that I happened to pass in the ships main passage, to get that ball rolling. She turned and grabbed my arm (which was hardly protocol) and said “Are you crying PO?” , which I denied (because Senior NCO’s don’t do things like that, they make other people do that and are made of wrought iron and rawhide, stewed in bilge water). She wouldn’t take that answer, whisked me off to Sick Bay, made me a cup of tea, I broke down, told her everything and was in Stonehouse hospital two hours later. Up to that point, I wasn’t “ill” enough for anybody to listen, but in reality, I was on the edge of doing something irreversible to myself or the first person that pressed the wrong buttons.
I know, from my contact with much more recent sufferers, this is still a common theme, even after the epidemic of such illnesses, courtesy of prolonged conflict, service men and women struggle to get that needed “First Aid” and initial recognition.
It speaks, again, to the difficulty, for an outside observer, to differentiate between “a bad day” and a “pathology”, even when they’ve had training in spotting the red flags.
I don’t know how you overcome that. Except that encouraging the individuals to feel safe in voicing their own concerns, or those close to them, at least, when they have doubts about somebody’s well being. But, basically, I don’t know.
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I think answer is educate people from a young age about mental health and put massive amounts of money in to young peoples mental health services. Then if peoples issues are picked up early there is less likely hood of the developing long term problems.
However given that mental services struggle to provide services to their current caseload and there is a shortage of trained staff. I don’t know how you do this without some patient groups losing out.
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I think answer is educate people from a young age about mental health and put massive amounts of money in to young peoples mental health services. Then if peoples issues are picked up early there is less likely hood of the developing long term problems.
However given that mental services struggle to provide services to their current caseload and there is a shortage of trained staff. I don’t know how you do this without some patient groups losing out.
Ah, that would be ID 10 T syndrome, which affects peoples voting habits...
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I don’t know how you overcome that. Except that encouraging the individuals to feel safe in voicing their own concerns, or those close to them, at least, when they have doubts about somebody’s well being. But, basically, I don’t know.
Absolutely, don't think even the experts really know but I do feel that kind of attitude has got to be a postive,
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Bit sceptical about the concept of overdiagnosis here. Who is diagnosing a disorder that is not warranted, when and where is the data to evidence this? It is a chronically struggling service; it seems unlikely there is a plethora of people being wrongly diagnosed.
I find more likely that people may be more willing to consider the possibility and then quicker to draw those conclusions as laymen, friends and family. But misdiagnosis? Is there evidence?
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Bit sceptical about the concept of overdiagnosis here. Who is diagnosing a disorder that is not warranted, when and where is the data to evidence this? It is a chronically struggling service; it seems unlikely there is a plethora of people being wrongly diagnosed.
I find more likely that people may be more willing to consider the possibility and then quicker to draw those conclusions as laymen, friends and family. But misdiagnosis? Is there evidence?
Agreed, I was trying to project an relatively open position irrespective of my fairly clear positiion on this thread. My personal view (probably fairly obvious!) is pretty sceptical that over diagnosis is an issue we really need to be worrying about.
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‘Sick enough’ is a good medically orientated resource for anyone interested in diagnosis and the broad spectrum of difficulties associated with this topic. Dmac is hardly a good example of modelling ‘healthy eating’, what he lacks in genetics he made up for through restriction and a dedication to meta analysis of research which supported that approach (normal psychological defence and ascetic practices ). On the subject of ‘ownership’ of choices there’s an incredible sadness witnessing somebody with very low body weight continuing to punish themselves with restriction and exercise. This presents a very complex and distressing ethical, moral, philosophical and spiritual problem for all involved. Everyone must have passed the person running who looks tormented and barely alive, often in the early morning looking to burn calories before any fuel goes in.
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A ballsy response to the documentary from a climber who has successfully utilised weight loss as a redpoint tactic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kru5CjDLipA
As a German, he's typically direct, and I think some of his opinions regarding women didn't come out quite right (and are possibly wrong), but for the most part I think his intentions were in the right place.
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I've had this on in the background while working and my impression is not great. He refers to 'emotional pandering' and has complains that the doc wasn't 'objective' and 'didn't have enough data to look at.'
a) what the fuck?
b) it never set out to be objective
c) its a documentary about peoples experiences, not a scientific paper
He comes across as pretty uncaring and dismissive. As has been said ad infinitum through this thread, just because weight loss has been a good tactic for some people at the top of the sport doesn't mean it will be that way for everyone. The way he talks about it getting such great results is the worst possible thing someone struggling could hear. Although I'm sure he didn't mean it that way and taking into account second language considerations, that is tone deaf stuff on a channel with 90k subscribers.
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My initial thought was 'I'm sure Alex doesn't have a German accent' :-\
Couldn't face watching it all by the time it got to around 10 minutes where he tried(!) to describe how women end on the route to eating disorders with the simplistic 'seeing a chubby girl in the mirror' trope. Scanned through some of the rest but couldn't really be bothered.
Maybe cut him a bit of slack due to second language but given he managed to sound OK for the first couple of minutes before he got properly started I think it's mainly just pretty rubbish.
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As a German, he's typically direct, and I think some of his opinions regarding women didn't come out quite right (and are possibly wrong), but for the most part I think his intentions were in the right place.
As an Austrian you shouldn't take him too seriously, witness the comments in this video where he trolled his viewers while literally sitting under a bridge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70c1ckMityg
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I have watched a fair few of his vids in the past and like his thoughts and general style. I basically thought that his vid was a fair critique of the Light “documentary “. I understand that there are areas in which he has simplified things and clearly he doesn’t emotionally try to understand or connect with anyone going through or being on the edge of an eating disorder. However much that he says is pretty true. I do get that someone looking at his vid could get the message that being at your lightest is the only way but that is not what he says.
Dave
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For me: Not what Davo says.
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I clicked the link, saw that it was over half an hour long and immediately closed it again.
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Alizée Dufraisse has just put up a few posts on this subject:
Part 1
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLZu8DsjEuH/?igshid=1c145usas9k4m
Part 2
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLZu-FSD9jN/?igshid=1i7bv6jccbe8x
Part 3
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLZu_rzjDyB/?igshid=98tkduw9dkez
Part 4
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLZvBTAjz_O/?igshid=1lfb6vd3wrb7y
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Interesting posts, especially the third one
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Interesting posts, especially the third one
Was going to stop posting on this thread, but have to say I agree ;)
Very interesting, also the 4th as well - being judgemental about body type/appearence in all directions can be really unhelpful.
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Since my ED i can barely make a semi
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Jo Neame interview:
https://exordi.net/2021/02/21/eating-disorders-among-elite-athletes/
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This was recommended to me on the subject:
https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/
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https://www.facebook.com/events/448556216410417/?utm_campaign=2021.03.07%20LIGHT%20-%203RD%20ROCK%20LIVE%20-%20UK%20F%20%26%20no%20preference%20(VNfhEB)&utm_medium=email&utm_source=3RD%20ROCK%20-%20Location%3A%20UK&_ke=eyJrbF9jb21wYW55X2lkIjogInlQOG4yTCIsICJrbF9lbWFpbCI6ICJmcnllcl9jaHJpc0Bob3RtYWlsLmNvbSJ9
Join us for Episode 3 in our series of 3RD ROCK LIVE broadcasts when we’ll be talking to new 3RD ROCK Ambassador Alizée Dufraisse, Director of the recent eye-opening documentary film LIGHT Caroline Treadway & DR Rachel Evans-an eating disorder recovery therapist.