E
vanston i an September 23, 2022
Evanston, IL.
By Jessica Sehgal, Bridget Baker, Marin Ubersox, Paula Hlava, Sophie Milner-Gorvine, Zoe Kaufman Executive Editor, In-Depth Editor, Assistant In-Depth Editor, Staff Writers For many ETHS students, sports are an integral part of the high school experience. They invigorate passion, build community, develop students’ character and create invaluable opportunities for countless athletes. However, with the many different messages sent to student athletes, they can develop mental illness, eating disorders and other mental health concerns. Gender biases in sports can also play a huge role in the challenges student athletes face, which leaves many feeling unfulfilled and unhappy within their sport. How are these problems with sports cultures intertwined, and what are we doing to combat them? Due to the structure of many sports, the messages that are directly or indirectly received by student athletes as well as the gender biases that have been coded into the way sports are played, coached and perceived, mental health issues and disordered eating are frequent elements of the athlete experience, as one 2020 literature review found in the Journal of Eating Disorders. According to sports psychiatrist Alan Currie, “There is strong and consistent evidence that eating disorders are prevalent in sport and especially in weight sensitive sports such as endurance, weight category and aesthetic sports as well as jumping events.” Figure skating, wrestling and dancing are just some of the sports that fall into this category. “Definitely a lot of people [on my team] still struggle with eating disorders,” senior Caroline Klearman, who skates for the Evanston team not affiliated with ETHS, shares. “I've known probably six or seven girls who went to in-patient centers for them. I think it's just so common that it's not really shocking when someone goes away.” There’s also some overlap with gender-based biases and the promotion of eating disorders and other self-image issues. “When we would go to traveling competitions with our coaches, they’d regulate our diets. There's very different rules about what the girls could eat versus what guys could eat,” Klearman illustrates. Another sport notorious for promoting restrictive diets is wrestling. In order to compete, wrestlers are entered into different weight classes, and they are weighed and tested for body fat through the program, which can encourage athletes to try to alter their weight in order to compete strategically. “If you do have issues with eating or your body [image, then] stepping on the scale and seeing your weight every day [can be challenging],” senior wrestler Peter Wade explains. “Just having a number assigned that can make you feel either good or bad about yourself, I can see that being really tough.” However, Wade shares he’s never felt pressure from his coaches or teammates to gain or lose weight for a competition. “I don’t push a weight class on people,” boys and girls wrestling varsity head coach Rodolfo Salinas reinforces.
Evanston Township High School
Vol. 106, Issue 2
Sexism in sports:
female athletes attest to culture of misogyny
“
When we would go to traveling competitions with our coaches, they’d regulate our diets. There were very different rules about what the girls could eat versus what guys could eat. —Caroline Klearman, senior figure skater
[Continued on page 10] Illustration by Kupunoli Sumi
news
feature 2-5
6,7
opinion 8,9,12
a&e 13-16
sports 18-20