In the last 30 years, there has been a surge in females competing in athletics. While this has opened up a number of opportunities for young women to participate in high school, collegiate and professional sports, it has also opened up a new area of medical research on athletic-related injuries in females that have gone almost untouched during this time.
Consequently, female athletes have been plagued by a number of injuries that would be greatly diminished if there was a level playing field with medical treatment of gender-related injuries.
A major athletic-related disorder of female athletes was first presented to the medical community in 1993 at the 40th Annual American College of Sports Medicine Meeting. The female triad, which is a group of symptoms commonly experienced by female athletes, includes amenorrhea (the lack of menstrual cycle), eating disorders and an early onset of osteoporosis.
However, the research done on this group of disorders in the past 10 years has been mediocre. In fact, the lack of further investigation into the causes of these symptoms has increased the incidence of potentially preventable injuries and continues due to the lack of understanding of the female athlete body and needs.
Particularly in sports where most women are small-framed (as in gymnastics and running), there is a predisposition for doctors to attribute female amenorrhea with eating disorders, regardless of whether the athlete medically fits the full profile.
According to author and MD Boone Barrow, a thorough exam with an integrated group of medical professionals, including nutritionists, psychiatrists and orthopedic surgeons, should be available to evaluate every aspect of the female athlete to combat the high occurrence of this disorder.
While Barrow’s scenario would be ideal in the medical sense, this is not a reality in many collegiate athletic programs, nor is this easily attainable for female noncompetitive athletes. This overprotective attitude is one reason many chronic injuries, like those in the infamous triad, are so common.
As a female athlete and distance runner, I find this attitude to be both paranoid and offensive. The fundamental problem with addressing these issues is that although 30 years have passed since women athletes have been allowed to thrive, our athleticism is still considered second rate to men’s. Thus, the measures that we must use to maximize our performances are seen as a problem and quickly diagnosed as a disorder instead of a lifestyle adaptation for our sport.
The problem is not always the coaches’ demanding standards or the athletes’ desires to be successful; the cause is the secretive manner in which women’s athletic health has been treated.
The attitude of the NCAA is that women are sensitive about their weight, and this should avoid being discussed. The NCAA forbids coaches and female athletes to discuss diet and weight, even though this restriction does not apply to males.
Not surprisingly, in one study published in the Journal of Athletic Training, researchers found that in a representative group of female collegiate cross country runners from six Michigan schools, there was an overall lack of knowledge of nutritional health, proper diet and weight management. However, the study also showed that these runners had “positive attitudes toward nutrition and concluded that they would be receptive to nutritional education.”
Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are further challenging the old stigma through new research aimed at identifying the root causes of female athletic-related injuries. They assert that “biomechanics are different for women, and you have to take that into account when you’re treating a woman for a sports injury.”
Researcher and assistant professor of medicine and rehabilitation Heidi Prather stresses that female athletic injuries also apply to the general female population as they share the same basic anatomical makeup. Notably, the shape of the female pelvis is one reason for the differences in injuries among men and women. Injuries such as the patella-femoral condition and iliotibial band syndrome are common overuse injuries with females because of women’s wider pelvises and the resulting angling of the lower extremities.
While these structural anomalies cannot be changed, Prather says that doctors should address causes of injuries, such as worn-out shoes, before prescribing therapy.
Like much of the progress that has been made in the area of female athletics, adequate knowledge of health issues and proper medical care will continue to improve as female sports gain popularity and notoriety. Hopefully, the forward and scientific approach that researchers have begun to practice will not only help reduce the occurrence of injuries and chronic disorders but also improve female athletic performance.