Body Image in Running: A Revisitied Commentary

If you are as big of a running nerd as I am, there are probably a few running websites that show up on your Facebook feed every now and again. While I have learned to pass over many of these articles during the work day, a blog by Michigan State’s Rachele Schulist immediately grabbed my attention. Why? I had never heard of her before but she bravely put up a long Instagram post about her struggle with disordered eating and body image and boldly asserting that "the idea that you have to look a certain way and be thin to be a fast runner is bullshit”. Also included in her post was a side by side picture of her present day and in 2014, before she sustained a major injury due to under-fueling. It was refreshing to see a D1 college athlete-often a subculture that is most victimized by the thinness culture-speak out. Kudos to FloTrack and then Sports Illustrated for picking up this story.

I think Schulist’s words are effective simply because she has experienced both sides of the spectrum and went through the process racing with both a “borrowed” and with her natural/actual physique: with almost identical race results. This was a lesson I had to learn in my younger days as well and I am not ashamed of it and this needs to be regularly discussed. Oh, and I too have a similar 5k time to what I was running at 105 pounds. Bottom line is that It’s encouraging to see a young lady like Ms. Schulist turn it around and then share for all to see with some fire giving the subject the attention it deserves. Strength always wins.

We’re making progress, yall. Keep it up. Unfortunately, the running culture has a ways to go and on the same day I read the Schulist piece, I came across a garbage discussion titled “Ryan Hall looks huge at Xterra” and took the bait, reading some of the comments-here we go with the “underworld” of distance running. Mind you, Ryan Hall is retired and allowed to look however the heck he wants-his new muscular look in a race photo was being picked apart by a number of posters on this forum. Hall, a male athlete who also learned that 127 pounds as a 5’10 male is also not sustainable, has taken up weightlifting. While still very fit, individuals took turns calling his new, healthier body, and less competitive finish time “sad”. Given he was smiling in the picture, it’s clear he is not bothered that his body has adapted to a different activity-I would call that more science than sad-and he was just enjoying himself out there. I'm not sure if Ryan cares what others are saying, but it's the message it puts out to those who don't know any better.

A number of posters continued to pick apart Hall’s looks and speculate about his body fat percentage, whether he’s on steroids, etc. This is an example of how males are not immune, especially in running circles. What frustrates me is that many people don’t think before voicing their opinion and we had two different perspectives happening at exactly the same time in the media. This can be potentially confusing for any athlete, but especially the younger, more impressionable runners who look for not only an edge but maximal social approval.

So, how to continue to address this ongoing issue? As both a runner and clinician, this is important to me. I don’t have all the right answers, but stories such as Rachele Schulist’s needs to become a more dominant topic instead of “thinner is faster/better”. We are not machines, we cannot continually strip and minimize ourselves in order to attain something actually very arbitrary such as a race performance.

A colleague of mine once had some great advice for us as a culture: others don’t have a right to talk about your body; it belongs to you. As individuals, we need to either decenter the role of our body type in our lives and/or change the way we view and talk about it.

Others are listening to what we say and do. We need more individuals like Rachele Schulist being honest and setting a positive example for runners of all ages and genders.