Athletes Learning to Balance Body Image and Sport

SPORTS

March 4, 2022 Established 1874

Athletes Learning to Balance Body Image and Sport

Illustration by Clair Wang

Zoë Martin del Campo Contributing Sports Editor

What does it mean to be beautiful? When do I feel the most beautiful? Am I beautiful?

These are questions that many people who are socialized as women ask themselves — questions that I have asked myself while looking in the mirror fresh out of practice. Covered in sweat and turf, I feel most beautiful when I am athletic.

However, athletic spaces do not always elicit such self-confidence. According to ESPNW, “68 percent of female athletes said they felt pressured to be pretty,” and “30 percent responded with a fear of being ‘too muscular.’”

Abbie Patchen, College second-year on both the field hockey and lacrosse team, believes that societal norms and beauty standards present a unique struggle for female athletes, who must deal with these expectations alongside the pressure to be strong for their sport.

“A lot of this pressure comes from outside of the sports world,” she wrote in an email to the Review. “Regardless of involvement in athletics, females are inundated with ideas about what their bodies should look like. I think a lot of female athletes want to find a balance between being athletic and graceful. I have definitely experienced this. I have played sports my entire life and always have had an athletic build, which at many times in my life I have resented. Different things are expected of the female body in different spaces, so it can be hard to go from wanting to feel strong in one area and then expected to be dainty and pretty in another.”

College third-year on the field hockey team, Jackie Oh, believes that female athletes are pressured to fit a Eurocentric standard of beauty, even at Oberlin.

“We see elite athletes on television, magazines, and social media competing with amazing physiques and somehow having picture-perfect action shots,” Oh wrote in an email to the Review. “Unfortunately, I feel like a lot of the appeal for women’s athletics comes from our appearance and if we fit the United States’s standard of beauty. It’s difficult to garner support from fans if we don’t look a certain way or perform with a ‘pretty face.’ I even remember at Oberlin, seeing a sliding scale of women’s prettiest athletics teams on campus.”

Oh added that it wasn’t until the pandemic that she began lifting regularly; she had previously avoided it because of societal pressure to not be “too muscular.” She found that lifting not only made her physically better at her sport, but also had a positive impact on her mental health.

“One of the most common reasons women don’t lift is because they believe that it will make them look bulky or ‘bigger,’” Oh wrote. “I recall thinking this throughout all of high school and the beginning of my career at Oberlin. Whenever I did a workout on my own, it would always be cardio because I also thought that cardio was the only form of working out that was appropriate for my sport. However, during the pandemic, I realized that lifting was extremely beneficial for me, physically and mentally.”

College second-year on the field hockey and lacrosse teams, Sara Fields, believes that athletic standards are heavily influenced by societal pressures surrounding body image. Fields, an outspoken advocate for eating disorder awareness, has personal experience with body image issues as a female athlete.

“As someone who has dealt with issues around eating and body dysmorphia personally, this issue is very relevant to the way I see athletic standards in the context of relative body image,” she wrote in an email to the Review. “When you join a team or sport, females especially must struggle with the idea that they should be small, slender, look put together and graceful. These expectations are highly improbable in the standards among sports with performance and being able to do well. It is incredibly difficult being a female athlete and feeling like I need to look a certain way and portray myself as beautiful during an athletic performance, [especially] when standards are not the same for those who identify as other genders.”

For Patchen, athletic spaces are complex, encouraging body-inclusivity at some times while promoting unhealthy standards at others.

“I think athletics can be body-inclusive because if you are able to perform, then it doesn’t matter what you look like,” she wrote in an email to the Review. “There are also so many sports to try that provide opportunities for people with all different kinds of bodies. However, athletics can promote behaviors that skew towards having a smaller body.”

With many athletes starting their sporting careers at a young age, they are especially vulnerable to harmful rhetoric surrounding body image. Oh has been playing field hockey for nine years and remembers her coaches giving her critiques on her body and the impact that those comments had on her mental health.

“Athletics definitely impacts body image,” she wrote. “Growing up, I’ve had coaches from multiple sports tell me that I need to have a specific physique to do well or to play certain positions. When you factor in going through puberty, seeing rapid changes in your body, and comparing yourself to your peers and teammates, it can be really debilitating to your mental health. I had a bigger build growing up, and I remember feeling really lonely and using athletics as my form of weight loss or changing my body.”

While body image in the athletic community is still an issue, teams at Oberlin are making strides to create an environment that is inclusive and supportive of all body types.

“I think that the field hockey team makes a point to make sure that all of our players love their teammates but also themselves,” Oh wrote. “We make it a point to make sure that we are all comfortable in conversa-

Volume 151, Number 13

Baseball Opens Season with New Team Strategy

Oberlin baseball player Yianni Gardner celebrates on the field in a huddle with his team.

River Schiff

Senior Staff Writer

Courtesy of Oberlin Athletics

Oberlin baseball travels to Kentucky to play Berea College in the team’s season opener today. The 53-player roster is sure to be packed with talent, with 29 underclassmen — including 22 first-years — and 24 upperclassmen. The 2019 team won less than half of its games, going 17–38, and has since only won two games throughout the shortened 2020 and 2021 seasons. The new, lengthy roster marks a huge rebuilding year for the Yeomen as they look to capitalize on young talent.

First-year pitcher Jack Page highlighted that having such a large roster has fostered the right amount of friendly competition between team members.

“We’ve only had one scrimmage and we had an emphasis that anyone can play from game to game,” he said. “We have 51 games — which is a lot — meaning many of the players will have tired arms for pitching. Anyone has to be ready.”

The extensive roster is beyond the 40-player travel cap implemented by the NCAA, and as such, the team was split into developmental and varsity squads. Which team a player is on can vary from game to game. Despite the competition for a spot on the varsity team, every player is pushing each other to be the best they can.

“The older guys who may be on the cusp between [developmental and varsity] will help us try to get better, and if we have the ability, we’ll try to push them to get better as well,” Page said. “We even have cage wars in practice to make it feel more like a game.”

Page believes that the friendly environment the team has established enables the Yeomen to push each other as they look to a building season. Assistant Coach Jonathan Ray echoes the importance of not actively competing with teammates but still pushing each other to become the best players they can be.

“With our guys, the main goal is for them to focus on attacking their opportunities,” Ray said. “Baseball has a lot of one-on-one opportunities within a team sport. We want a highly competitive practice but want them to be rooting for each other. If they’re struggling, they know they can hand the ball to any other pitcher on the team. There’s a huge focus on building trust with each other.”

The Yeomen, who were ranked last in the North