Eating disorders are a growing concern in the sports community. The problem is such that Sports Quebec is offering a very first online training to its coaches.
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
For sports nutritionist Alexia de Macar, who will provide it with fellow psychologist Jodie Richardson, the initiative is more than welcome.
“I have so many requests, it’s crazy,” worries the co-founder of Dare to Fuel Performance, which has made it its mission to educate and equip all players in the field on the subject.
PHOTO FROM ALEXIA DE MACAR’S WEBSITE
Alexia de Macar, sports nutritionist
“Right now there is so much eating disorders,” insists de Macar, who has been a nutritionist with Diving Canada for the past three Olympic cycles and still follows athletes identified by Skate Canada.
“But it’s not just at the elite level: our provincial federations are struggling with states of crisis in many, many sports. »
The specialist in acro-artistic disciplines – she also works with artists from Cirque du Soleil – specifies that eating disorders are not limited to sports such as figure skating or gymnastics, far from it.
We have to talk about it because it exists in all sports. There are football, hockey, tennis, alpine skiing. It’s in every sport.
Alexia de Macar, sports nutritionist
Endurance sports, where weight maintenance is a constant concern, are obviously not spared.
According to studies, she says, the prevalence of eating disorders is higher in sportsmen and athletes than in the general population, especially on the male side. “There are so many risk factors associated with sport, notes the specialist. It is an environment where unbalanced or unhealthy eating behaviors are normalized. “Ah, are you a top athlete or do you want to be? You have to make food sacrifices. If you eat dessert, you have to go do extra cardio…” »
With a doctorate in sports nutrition, Alexia de Macar has been advising top athletes for more than 15 years. She quickly realized that many of her clients had an unhealthy relationship with food.
It’s a little funny to say, but in nutrition, we don’t really have any training in managing eating disorders. Athletes who needed to lose weight were coming to me and they were eating like 600 calories a day… I didn’t know what to do.
Alexia de Macar, sports nutritionist
She therefore turned to clinical training in eating disorders, but none of them was suitable for sport. His meeting with Jodie Richardson, a clinical psychologist who did her doctoral research in the Eating Disorders Program at the Douglas Institute, was the ideal combination.
“I coached her for a decade on how to work with athletes and she coached me on eating disorders. We have developed this expertise in screening, but also in the treatment of eating disorders specific to this clientele. »
Dare to Fuel Performance
Their appointment book filled up at lightning speed and they had no one to refer waiting athletes to. The idea therefore came to them to found Dare to Fuel Performance, “a platform to educate all health professionals, but also sports”.
“If you work with a developing athlete or an elite athlete, you have a responsibility, a role to play in relation to this problem, because it exists, pleads Macar. We know it, but eating disorders scare everyone: doctors, psychologists, coaches. You have to normalize the fact that it’s okay as a worker or a professional to have that kind of anxiety. »
The fear of making a mistake, of ruining a relationship of trust and, above all, of causing a cessation of training is particularly mentioned by coaches.
The line between a real eating disorder and a dysfunctional diet is not clear to anyone. It contributes to the problem.
Alexia de Macar, sports nutritionist
Early detection is, however, a key factor in the prognosis for recovery. “Athletes think it’s just a normal sacrifice,” says the nutritionist. They tell themselves that the day they retire, it will just disappear. This is not the case. An eating disorder, you have a window of one to two years to treat it easily. Otherwise, it becomes chronic. People get stuck with it and it can take years of treatment to get over it. »
The fact that athletes “rarely look super thin” contributes to the difficulty of screening. The same goes for denial, which is a diagnostic criterion. “It’s not that they’re lying, it’s just that they actually think they’re okay. I’ve had athletes who were in the hospital with a heart rate of 30 beats per minute saying to themselves, “I’m still okay”. »
While cases of abuse, anxiety and mental health have been in the news lately under the umbrella concept of “safe sport”, eating disorders often remain in a blind spot, notes Alexia de Macar. They are lip serviced, athletes, often retired, talk modestly about food issues, and articles usually focus on dramatic symptoms like making you vomit, she notes.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
“Everyone is downplaying the eating disorder right now. You have to understand that it doesn’t let go of the athletes, that it follows them from morning to night and that it undermines their lives, ”supports sports nutritionist Alexia de Macar.
“Athletes who have been through this for a long time tell me: I wish it had been written that I missed all the birthday parties in my family for so many years because of my eating disorder. And I can never find those moments again. There are also all those times when I isolated myself, when I didn’t share any meals with my teammates in training camp. »
“Mega taboo” in the sports world, the problem of eating disorders is “serious, but treatable”. “Everyone is downplaying the eating disorder right now. You have to understand that it does not let go of the athletes, that it follows them from morning to night and that it undermines their lives. For me, it’s a professional mission, but also a personal one: we see so many athletes in distress. »
Book, podcast, newsletter, conferences: Alexia de Macar and Jodie Richardson have plenty of plans to share their unique expertise across the country. Sports Québec coaches will be among the first beneficiaries.