By Therese Iknoian

The man representing the U.S. Olympic Committee at a sports trade show a number of years ago answered my comment about competing in race walking with a remark that stunned me:
"Aren't you a little heavy for that?"

Normally rather outspoken, I was so taken aback that I turned and stumbled away, utterly speechless. A little heavy? At that time, I carried 114 pounds on my 5-foot-6 frame and worked out nearly every day. Heavy? I don't think so.

After mulling over his comment, I wrote a steaming letter to the USOC, lambasting its directors for not educating their representatives about eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa (self-starvation) or bulimia (bingeing and purging). Such comments like his to me are exactly what can trigger a fatal pattern of starvation, bingeing, and purging like the one that killed U.S. national gymnast Christy Heinrich a few years ago. Such obsessions can happen because of the emphasis our society continues to place on overly thin bodies.

Anyone who likes to control his or her life -- and perhaps feels out-of-control -- can find solace in counting calories (or fat grams, or calories expended in exercise, or…) because you regain some tidbit of power. Realizing you have a problem -- or identifying an athlete with a disorder -- isn't always easy. Skinny doesn't mean sick; average doesn't mean healthy.

Coaches and teachers are sometimes to blame, although not solely. A comment, like the USOC representative's to me, can trigger feelings of inadequacy or imperfectness. Me, I just got angry. The student or athlete, such as Heinrich, often only wants to please when he or she starts crazy patterns of eating. Always a perfectionist who would stop at nothing, she overheard a coach say that she, then 93 pounds, needed to watch her weight.

Coaches, teachers and parents should take the time to learn how susceptible some athletes, female and male, are to the tiniest hint.