Diet Culture in Sports: A Registered Dietitian’s Perspective
By Briana Bruinooge, RDN, CSSD
Hi, I’m Briana Bruinooge. I am a Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics. My job is to make sure athletes know how to fuel their bodies for both sport and life. As the owner of my practice at New England Nutrition and Exercise, I see athletes of various sports and ages. The hardest part about working with me is reframing negative thoughts about food. Unfortunately, there is a lot of negative talk about food in our culture which can lead to unhealthy behaviors around eating. Food is more than just energy and nourishment, it is cultural, social, and emotional. I support this notion in my nutrition consultations and nutrition education.
What is Diet Culture?
The influence of peers and social media on what to eat and how to look. It is the social expectation to keep up with the current trend of diets and body image.
Who Does Diet Culture Affect?
Diet culture affects all humans of all sizes, genders, and age. Anyone who feels they need to keep up with current trends of diet and body image to feel accepted and valued and to fit into society can be affected. Diet culture affects everyone, including athletes. The belief that losing weight will increase sport performance is not necessarily true and poses harmful unintended consequences.
Diet Culture in Sports:
There are stereotypes of body types in different sports based on social media and pressure from coaches, peers, and family members. Certain sports have more revealing uniforms and the desire to fit these body type standards can supersede a balanced diet. The observed eating habits of teammates contributes to internal pressure of how to eat. All these factors can contribute to negative eating patterns, especially if the team dynamic favors eating less instead of eating enough.
Diet Culture in Rock Climbing (Specifically)
Rock climbing is thought to have a strength-to-weight ratio associated with the sport. The thought is, “the lighter you can be, the easier it will be to climb hard”. While certain scenarios I can see some slow weight loss as a benefit, how far is too far regarding weight loss? There are so many other aspects of climbing to work on besides weight loss if your goal is to be a better climber. Strength, flexibility, endurance, and years of climbing experience are far better areas to focus on. In fact, the research is out that weight, height, and BMI only account for about 1.8-4% of climbing ability (Reference: 11 Things that Impact Your Climbing Besides Weight) . Under-eating and disordered eating can lead to eating disorders and RED-S (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport) which are serious health issues that need extensive treatment.
Why is Diet Culture Harmful?
Focusing on rock climbing specifics here, diet culture can have a powerful effect on a climber who thinks they need to lose weight to climb harder. One might try to lose weight by joining in on a fad diet, decreasing portion sizes, skipping meals, over-exercising to burn off extra calories and all of a sudden they’ve lost muscle mass, decreased endurance, increased frustration/anxiety and depression and much more.
Here is a list of other negative downsides to losing weight in an unhealthy manner:
Decreased immunity and increased illness
Increased risk for injury
Stunted growth and puberty for adolescents
Gastrointestinal issues
Poor performance
Decreased muscle strength
Decreased coordination
Examples of Diet Culture
Diet culture is not accurately based on the most up to date information on nutrition. For example, the “Atkins Diet” was popular and re-surfaced again years later disguised as the “keto-diet” promoting a low-carb and high fat diet. The keto diet promises quick weight loss by referencing multiple photographs in the media of other people who have had success with it. This is dangerous to most people, as they are missing out on key nutrients and likely not consulting experts in the nutrition field such as Registered Dietitian Nutritionists. This can cause negative symptoms such as chronic fatigue, worsened mood, anxiety, depression, sleep issues, gastrointestinal issues, decreased metabolism and much more that is not shown in the media.
While on the keto diet, there is guilt and shame that comes from eating a slice of bread or a banana for fear of eating too many carbohydrates. Bananas and bread are great sources of energy and therefore the diet continues to cause harm. The idea that the keto diet will drastically change your body as it does to those on social media is a misconception. People are left with guilt, fear, disappointment, uncertainty and a poor relationship with food and body image.
The diet culture of “intuitive eating” is a newer trend. This trend resonates with me, however there are the exceptions, especially for athletes. For example, if you only eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full, you could be under-eating for the physical activity you are expending. Athletes often need to schedule times to eat and intentionally fuel around activity.
How to fight against harming effects of diet culture:
Spread awareness of “all food fits” and “neutral” body image.
Educate children, adults, coaches, peers, family members on how to talk about diet culture and what a healthy relationship with food can look like.
Be a role model for a healthy relationship with food and body image; if you are not there yet, avoid talking negatively about these topics and seek help for yourself.
Avoid terms like “good” and “bad” foods that place moral to food and ultimately can cause guilt if we are not 100% eating those “good” foods all the time.
Exemplify what a balanced plate can look like, without excluding any food groups.
Normalize eating foods from a package AND foods from their whole form.
If you see a coach, teammate or peer spreading false nutrition advise, or even uncertain nutrition advise, call them out on it and suggest nutrition education from Dietitians specialized in sports nutrition.
Seek out a Registered Dietitian and Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics to help guide your team to success.
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