Athletes have to maintain physical fitness to better their performance. According to coaches and athletes, the expectations of conditioning can lead to body image dissatisfaction (BID) and consequences like body dysmorphia and eating disorders.
In team sports, according to senior cheerleader Julie Veta, these pressures can come from peers just as much as internal expectations.
“The expectations tend to be created around your teammates,” Veta said. “Your teammates, they voice their opinions.”
According to the NIH, athletes do see physical body image as an important component of their health, but this can lead to negative consequences, especially in female athletes.
“All around us, people hear comments. I certainly have,” Veta said. “It makes you insecure. And so then you start looking at your body differently, and looking in the mirror and comparing yourself to the skinnier girls on the team.”
For Veta, it can be hard to even take the leap and try to make the team, out of fear of not fitting in with teammate expectations.
“It makes people who are afraid to try out…because they don’t look exactly like every skinny girl,” she said. “It has nothing to do with your body size. It has to do with how much work you are willing to put in the sport.”
On the cheer team, Veta has personally seen her coach, Ben Fuller, set a positive environment that prioritizes strength and effort over body shape or size. But at competitions and when in proximity with other high school teams, she hasn’t seen the same thing elsewhere.
“They can be extremely detrimental to their kids and how they think,” she said. “I think our coach does a really good job of giving everybody a fair chance.”
PE teacher Michael Luhring was the head coach of boys’ wrestling for 20 years. Athletes go through weight cutting processes to get into lower weight classes with smaller opponents.
“Cutting weight in high school wrestling is no longer the horror of 25 years ago,” Luhring said. “When coaches used to go too far in weight cutting, I think it not only hurt the athlete’s health but also hurt their athletic performance. I could always tell when a wrestler was cutting too much weight, they may appear lean and fit, but late in the match, they run out of gas much faster.”
BID is measured in higher numbers among athletes in weight-sensitive sports, like gymnastics, boxing, endurance running, and long/high jump, because gravity and aesthetic have a bigger impact on performance. Also, more athletes report BID at higher levels of their sport, suggesting higher implications for varsity athletes moving onto college competition.
Yet athletes aren’t the only teens that exercise. Gym culture is another world based on athletic performance and, often, physical appearance. Senior Aaron Kutzer, an avid gym-goer, started in 2023 to build up his muscle mass, but has seen a toxic culture towards beginners.
“A positive culture would change the way people think of the gym. It would make going to the gym so much simpler,” Kutzer said. “Stop caring about what other people are doing in the gym. Everyone has their own reason to be there.”
Kutzer is appreciative of what the gym has done for him—he described himself as the ‘skinny kid’ when he started—he feels more comfortable in his own body and he’s seen his mental strength improve.
“It’s really shaped how I go through life, because it’s taught me consistency, perseverance, and many more life skills,” he said.
But he thinks the culture could dissuade others from getting that same enrichment.
“If you see a kid doing the wrong form that might impact his health or harm him, go up in a super friendly tone and manner and just show him the way,” he said. “Give him some positive feedback so that he can come back tomorrow or the following day. Improve his technique.”
In his role as PE teacher, Luhring warns of how physical education can go too far.
“PE teachers should focus on introducing students to a variety of sports and instructing them on the basic fundamentals and strategies of the sport. Make the sport fun, low pressure,” he said. “Coaches should condition their athletes to an optimum level, too much of anything is never a good idea.”
