<p>** Missypie:**
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<p>That’s very commendable but in truth dancers and gymnasts and wrestlers, etc., are at significantly higher risk for anorexia, bulimia and compulsive eating disorders: <a href=“http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/eatingdisorders1/a/bulimia.htm[/url]”>http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/eatingdisorders1/a/bulimia.htm</a></p>
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<p>I’m sure that’s true at the more elite levels, but the girls we know were certainly NOT depriving themselves of food! </p>
<p>When D (the gymnast) was younger, she was very thin, just like I was at her age. Like a stick, all leg. The gymnastic coaches would talk to her on occasion to make sure she was eating enough - I appreciated that. But she went through a stage where she loved to chomp on iceberg lettuce - and when the coaches asked what her favorite food was, she said “iceberg lettuce.” I was expecting a call from Child Protective Services!</p>
<p>I think ANY teen girl is at risk for developing an eating disorder. One of my son’s track teammates turned out to have a very serious problem and we (parents and coaches) missed all the signs. She wound up in an in-patient facility and struggled for years. This problem is not limited to gymnasts or other athletes, but you certainly do see it.</p>
<p>^ It’s an issue in dance, certainly. I don’t think the prevalence of eating disorders makes athletics a bad idea. I just think moderation can be a good thing, in most things. </p>
<p>In my neighborhood there are two families with daughters hugely into “competitive dance” which I take to mean a sort of quasi-gymnastics/cheerleading/dance. Anyway, the moms are clearly really obsessed with their daughters’ involvement in this pursuit. The moms are kind of heavy. The daughters are really thin. The mothers love that the daughter’s are thin. The families seem to spend most of their evenings and weekends going to the practices and competitions. I guess they find meaning and enjoyment in it. I can’t help thinking – what a colossal waste of time and energy! I’m just bad. Can’t help it.</p>
<p>As an aside, do any of you watch *Making the Team <a href=“or%20similar%20title?”>/I</a> about the audition process for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders? As you are no doubt aware, they wear *tiny *shorts, so any extra weight shows like crazy. It always slays me when a girl looks too “chunky” in her shorts and they call her into the office and tell her that she needs to “hit the gym” so she can “look more fit” by next week. Yeah, right, wink wink…they don’t articulate the part about how the girl pretty much can’t eat anything between now and then if she wants to drop real weight in just a week.</p>
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<p>Dance was my favorite kid activity ever - H’s, too. Great girls, great parents. Promoted teamwork, a healthy body image, artistic expression. Packing and keeping track of multiple costume pieces for each dance in very crowded dressing rooms taught organization. My D’s college essay was actually about what being a drill team officer taught her and how it prepared her for the business world.</p>
<p>And what’s with these gymnasts celebrating their Olympic medals by eating a hamburger at McDonald’s? GD said she did that, but I recall the same story from other Olympic years. I’m sorry, but you’d have to be pretty fixated on how junk food and fat-deprived you are to consider that a reward for so fantastic an accomplishment!</p>
<p>Maybe it’s the teenager equivalent to drinking a beer after a marathon? :)</p>
<p>I actually think Gabby D has a future in film. She’s got the “it” factor. So no question her parents made the right call for her. But for every Gabby D there are a lot of girls and boys who spent an awful lot of time doing their sport when they could have been doing other stuff. That’s life though. There are always opportunity costs.</p>
<p>I’ve worked with people whose kids looked to be on their way to D1 sports and somehow an injury or a failure to grow that extra inch or two took them out of the running. So they went to smaller schools and still played the sports and the parents were able to still obsess over it. One of the kids graduated and had a hard time. A lot of DUIs. A lot of difficulty not being “an athlete” any longer. His mom and dad also found it hard.</p>
<p>I dunno. We just didn’t go down that road. I guess if one of my kids just LOVED a sport and pushed me to drive them all the time and do it all the time I would have supported it. That didn’t happen. They turned out fairly dynamic and interesting people anyway. Both are fit in the sense that they look good and can play some social tennis and keep up on hikes and stuff. </p>
<p>At Harvard my kid said a lot of people just weren’t interested in going to the big games. He stood next to Lin a few times in his residence hall cafeteria doing the salad bar. He thought Lin was cool even back then but not enough to go to the games.</p>
<p>Well, Sewhappy, some people love sports and some don’t. I think we’ve established that on CC. It was (and is) a positive thing for my family. My daughter stopped competitive swimming after 8th grade since she wanted to do music and drama. She is now training for her second marathon! My son is a triathlete. It’s all good and I don’t regret any of the driving, long weekend meets or physical therapy appointments!</p>
<p>sewhappy: whatever point you are trying to make is sailing right over my head…
Are you advocating for well-roundedness rather than a focused activity? Are you suggesting what worked out so well for your own kids is the correct model? Are you just trying to point out that, in your opinion, sports aren’t “all that”?</p>
<p>^^I think she is saying all 3, but with an emphasis on “sports are a waste of everyone’s time.”</p>
<p>Don’t think GD has anything special for show biz; saw her on America’s Got Talent. Her teammate, Maroney, however, is already on her way.</p>
<p>I see a lot of eating issues in my area. My D has commented on how she feels heavy when she is amongst her peers in our city but when she visited colleges she was on the thin side. Whether it is true or not my D feels like our town breeds tall, skinny and beautiful young women. My D has worked hard with her therapist to try to stay in the what is a healthy weight for me and my body type. I don’t see much difference with the athletes over the other girls. In both of my girls they tended to be put on a lot of muscle in both their upper body and thighs when they are heavily involved in sports. They almost tend to be thinner when they are inactive.
We have no Olympic dreams but my D rides 5 or 6 days a week. She spends the majority of her non school time at her barn. We spend a crazy amount of money on her sport. Her sport was her salvation. When she hated school it gave her a safe place to be. A place where she felt confident, she calls her horse her therapist. She is one of the most reliable 17 yr olds I know. As she grew up in the barn she took on more responsibility and also knows that she is a role model for the younger girls. Also because she wanted to ride more she took a job to help pay for expenses. Her job has given her great skills that she will take out into the world.
My kid hated high school. I know we would have not made it through the last 4 yrs if she had not had her sport.</p>
<p>Sewhappy–you’ve made huge, overly broad generalizations about kids involved in elite-level sports. Basically, you’ve asserted that most elite-level athletes have fat parents, eating disorders, no time to develop their intellect, no family life, mothers obsessed with their child’s participation in sport/dance, and finally–it’s all to no avail because they rarely get recruited by colleges or pro-teams and end up being fat like their parents. </p>
<p>I’d be happy to tell you about many real-life elite-level athletes (and retired elite-level athletes) who don’t fit your stereotypes at all. They’re young women who’ve done well by their participation in their sport and have gone on to great colleges and are doing well professionally and in their personal lives. Do you know any elite-level athletes who’ve turned out to be happy, well-adjusted adults?</p>
<p>It’s fine if you don’t like sports and don’t value participation in sports. Different strokes and all that. I’m not a huge sport person, but I ended up with a kid who followed that path and we supported her and the results were not disastrous.</p>
<p>I think that the attempt to become truly excellent at just about anything - baking, tumbling, diving, riding, juggling, whatever - has value. (I might make an exception for video games.) Most parents would follow that statement up with “as long as there is balance in life.” But many of the elite of the elite do not have true balance…it’s the training that is almost to the exclusion of anything else, while perhaps necessary to become Olympic caliber, that would give many parents pause.</p>
<p>I guess it’s also a factor of what the “anything else” is that is being left out of a kid’s life…those episodes of *Teen Mom *are certainly not essential to my child’s future well being.</p>
<p>^Yes, it has an awesome value. Amazing fact, D. has broken about 15 team records when when she was 8-10 y o. They are still standing, all of them, some are 15 years later. She is not in a sport at all, but it is the best workout that anybody can imagine and she can do forever…into her 80s. Do not have to be in Olympics to enrich your life, but there are other dreams that were also pursued successfully, not at the national level, nonetheless very rewarding. Well, she did go to National - her sorority conference and sorority was not even in any kind of plans, jsut decided to join because it sounded good and it ended up being one of the most rewarding experiences, after graduation, still very much part of D’s life</p>
<p>I think it really does take a certain kind of kid and a certain kind of family to give their life over to one activity. My kids have been involved in swimming since they were five. Great sport, we spent a lot of time and money participating. We also had time as a family when we were involved year round. My kids realized that at age 14, those Olympic dreams were out of reach. That’s okay, they found other things that they love just as much if not more. Both still swim on the HS team and love to spend time with their friends. They love to contribute. They are leaders. They have learned much and enjoy mentoring the little middle school girls some of whom are faster than they are! I guess my point is that elite level activities are something you really can’t force on your kid. You can drive them to the activity, pay the bills and watch them but you can’t make them perform. No teenager except an elite athlete will get out of bed at 5 am to swim for 2.5 hours before school everyday and then swim another 2.5 hours at night. That is something the kid has to want. Same with any other activity. The kid has to want it more than the parent.</p>
<p>“No teenager except an elite athlete will get out of bed at 5 am to swim for 2.5 hours before school everyday and then swim another 2.5 hours at night.”
-Many swim clubs have this schedule in a summer…starting at about 10 y o. Kids just do it. They do not think they want it or not. It is almost a habit…</p>
<p>Swimming two-a-days and five hours a day at 10 is ridiculous. That is a good way for a kid to burn out and/or get overuse injuries. You can’t really be an elite athlete in swimming at 10 anyways.</p>