Female Gymnast

Female gymnasts function in a world of highly charged energy and expectations. Drug use in female gymnasts is not unknown. While the athletes are tested for steroids, other drugs can prove just as if not more harmful than banned substances. Sometimes, in all innocence, a gymnast can make a mistake. Andrea Raducan of Romania was stripped of her medal for accidently consuming a banned substance in a cold remedy.

At other times, the substances are ingested deliberately. Behind the scenes of a podium finish, behind an angelic female gymnast picture, can be a troubled child or adolescent. Diet pills, laxatives and other measures of weight control can affect, eventually, the kidney, liver and digestive system. The worst enemy of young female gymnasts in today’s world is their body and puberty. The development of hips and breasts can kill a promising career.

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While prior to the 1970s, famous female gymnasts e.g. Vera Caslayska and Latynina were women, after the arrival of the now famous gymnast, Olga Korbut, in 1972, the ideal changed. Women were out; young girls were in. The lighter the body, the smaller the female, the better chance she would become a champion gymnast. Coaches and audiences began to favor a specific body-type. They began to train very young girls basing the future possibility of a winning female gymnast on a pic of her mother. The contrast between these ideals, pre and post 1972, can clearly be seen in a female gymnast photo of Olga Korbut and one of any of her predecessors.

The trouble this attempt to remain forever prepubescent is retold in any number of biographies of female gymnasts, including that of Nadia Comaneci. Joan Ryan intelligently addressed the issue in her book Little Girls in Pretty Boxes. If it was not for this new ideal, American gymnast, Christy Henrich, would not have indirectly died of an eating disorder before her 22nd birthday. Her body failed her because the system of gymnastics failed her. The names of female gymnasts, even the names of famous female gymnasts with eating disorders, are also included on a list of female gymnasts with eating disorders.

Pictures of female gymnasts may not reflect this aspect of the sport, but it exists, nevertheless. It is a serious flaw in a beautiful sport. In order to become a female Olympic gymnast, a young girl should not have to sacrifice her health.