Pressure to Keep Weight Off for Sports Hurts Teens

Ivanhoe Newswire
Monday, March 12, 2007; 12:00 AM

By Betsy Lievense, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent

ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Parents are quick to attribute kids' eating disorders to the recent proliferation of ultra-thin Hollywood superstars like Paris Hilton or Nicole Ritchie, but a recent study reveals participating in sports that emphasize body weight can lead to unhealthy behaviors, too.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis/St. Paul found teens who participate in weight-based sports like ballet, wrestling and gymnastics are more likely to use laxatives, diet pills, diuretics, steroids and vomiting to control their weight than teens who do not participate in weight-related sports.

"I think first of all, in general, it's a wonderful thing for teenagers to participate in sports," Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, Ph.D., a professor in the school of public health at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis/St. Paul and author of, "'I'm Like, SO FAT!: Helping Your Teen Make Healthy Choices in a Weight-Obsessed World," told Ivanhoe. "However, we need to know that for some teenagers, participating in a sport that they feel pressures them to be at a certain weight, can have negative consequences."

The new study is based on adolescents' responses to the EAT Survey, which was administered to 4,746 students at 31 public high schools located in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn. After analyzing the data, researchers found males are more likely to participate in weight-based sports than females. They also found males in weight-based sports are 5.7-times more likely to vomit in a given week than males not involved in weight-based sports, and these young men are six-times more likely to use diuretics to control their weight. Steroid use is also higher among males involved in weight-based sports, which can be dangerous, as these drugs increase aggression, hostility, anger, irritability, depression, and anxiety in teens. Females involved in weight-based activities were twice as likely as their non-sports playing counterparts to control their weight with self-induced vomiting and also used higher amounts of laxatives and steroids.