Leaner, lighter... lethal? Sport climbing's problem with eating disorders
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 3 August 2024
⏱️ 12 minutes
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Summary
It's a strength-to-weight ratio sport. Meaning, aside from your technique or mental game, the lighter you are relative to your strength, the easier it'll be to get up a wall.
That's led some climbers to fall into the mindset that losing weight is the path to better performance.
One recent study of 50 elite climbers found that more than a third intentionally lost weight before a competition — primarily by fasting and skipping meals, and occasionally by using laxatives, or vomiting.
The mindset that lighter is better is what led one young climber, Jake Scharfman, to develop an unhealthy relationship with his weight.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Jake Sharfman says the feeling he gets when he goes climbing. |
| 0:02.6 | It's a feeling of full body elation. |
| 0:05.4 | I always feel like just really present in my body and like, |
| 0:10.3 | wow, I can't quite believe like this is where I am right now. |
| 0:15.6 | This is it. Let's go, big. |
| 0:18.6 | Good dude. Come on, jigg. |
| 0:20.4 | That my body just did that. |
| 0:22.8 | Yes, dude! |
| 0:24.8 | Dude! |
| 0:25.8 | He first felt that rush when he was 13 at a summer camp at his local climbing gym |
| 0:31.0 | in the San Francisco Bay Area. |
| 0:32.8 | It really clicked as an outlet that was very kinesthetic and also satisfied problem |
| 0:39.7 | solving and was something that I really always wanted to be doing in a way that hadn't |
| 0:45.2 | really manifested with other sports. He was hooked. He joined the gym's climbing team |
| 0:50.0 | and by his late teens he was qualifying to compete at the national level. |
| 0:54.0 | But he started to feel like he stuck out. |
| 0:57.0 | I was definitely one of the biggest, if not the biggest, |
| 1:00.0 | climbers, like every time. |
| 1:02.0 | In like the performance climbing world I was big |
| 1:04.9 | just as someone who worked out a lot and ate a lot. I just became a big person and I |
| 1:10.8 | was surrounded by people who didn't match that. |
| 1:15.0 | Consider this. Olympic Sport climbing kicks off on Monday and in the lead up to Paris |
... |
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