Sports Were Never Designed Around the Female Body

Ever since Title IX opened the door to our participation, female athletes have been encouraged, or even required, to fight their body’s natural development and restrict their diet to keep up with the boys. But no matter how many news stories come out about the epidemic of disordered eating and subsequent injuries and trauma for women in high school and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sports, we have continually failed to address the root issue: sports, as we know it, have never been designed around the developmental norms of the female body. As a woman with nearly three decades in elite sport, first as a five-time NCAA and two-time USA champion athlete, and later, a coach of professional female distance runners, my direct experience and research shows how insidious and widespread this problem is for female athletes across a variety of sports, while our institutions are doing little more than shrug. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Why female athletes are experiencing harm in such large numbers isn’t a mystery. The sports institutions we fought to gain access to were designed by men for men and boys, and the system is built around physiology and performance norms for male bodies aged 14 to 22. But the male body develops in an entirely different way than the female body. A culture of leanness and expectations of linear progression may make sense for bodies that are responding to an influx of testosterone and androgens. Expecting the same ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized freelance Sports Source Type: news