Episode #116

Expert: Dr. Lennie Waite

“Creating Healthy Body, Mind & Fueling Strategies with Dr. Lennie Waite”

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Stef Today we are joined by industrial-organizational sports psychologist and former professional runner Dr. Lennie Waite. Dr. Waite graduated with her undergraduate degree from Rice University before pursuing a Master's in Psychology in 2011, and ultimately a PhD in Industrial Organizational Psychology from the University of Houston. She is a two-time NCAA All-American and former Great Britain National Champion in the 3,000 meter steeplechase, and has competed on the world stage at both the Olympics and the World Championships.

Following her tremendous collegiate and professional track and field career, Dr. Waite has become an integral voice in the sports psychology space, helping athletes with navigating the mental game in order to optimize their performance trajectory. But also Dr. Waite is an expert in this field on the Voice in  Sport platform, where she joins our community and does one-on-one and group mentoring sessions with women athletes on specific topics around mind and body.

She even runs her own practice and is a graduate professor of Applied Sport and Performance Psychology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. Today Dr. Lennie Waite discusses her own athletic journey and shares with us her path as an athlete and what it taught her about the mental side of sport.

Dr. Lennie Waite   There's no shortcuts to success. And the best way to be successful is to do things the right way, which is to fuel yourself. And if they can start developing confidence in who they are, and as a human with the body that they have, and trust their natural developmental trajectory, they're gonna end up happier.

Stef She goes on to dive deeply into the sports psychology surrounding body image and nutrition. And she challenges us all to embrace our bodies, especially during the times of change.

Dr. Lennie Waite It's pretty incredible what women are capable of. And a big portion of that is because we get our period. appreciate the changes 

Stef And she emphasizes the importance of education and promoting healthy relationships with our body, our nutrition, and our sport.

Dr. Lennie Waite I lead with education first and normalization. So telling them a little bit about the signs, the symptoms, why people go down that path, what things to look at, what are the long-term consequences just in terms of what risks you're putting your body at. Not only today, but next year in five years and in 10 years. With knowledge, there's power

Stef Before we get started, if you love this podcast, please leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts and Spotify. And don't forget to sign up at voiceinsport.com. If you are a woman in sport in high school, middle school, or college, Dr. Lennie Waite, we're so excited to have you on the Voice in Sport podcast, welcome.

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Dr. Lennie Waite Thank you so much for having me on.

Stef Well, we're so excited. Your background is absolutely incredible. I mean, you were an amazing athlete growing up, and you have come into this profession that is gonna help so many young girls at the Voice in Sport community. So, we're excited to have you as a new VIS expert. And I wanted just to start about, really about the type of study that you're in, and the area of expertise that you have. So let's start with what is an IO sports psychologist?

Dr. Lennie Waite That's a great question. IO stands for industrial-organizational. So I did my PhD in industrial organizational psychology, and then I used that PhD to work specifically in sports. In industrial organizational psychology, you are really trained to look at things from a macro perspective.

So you learn what is the culture of, the business place or of the work environment. And a lot of IO psychologists work in corporations really supporting employee health and wellbeing. And I take those same principles and really use them in an athletic environment. So if you think about sports, it's so great to be able to work individually one-on-one with athletes, but in order to make the change that I would like to see made in sporting organizations, it's about changing the culture, shifting how we recruit and retain great athletes, shifting the type of benefits that we give athletes. Thinking more creatively about the type of support that athletes need in their competitive arena and outside of the competitive arena. And those are all the principles that you learn as an IO psychologist.

Stef Amazing. And so if you had to kind of just step back and say, okay, main three differences between a sports psychologist and an IO sports psychologist, how would you break that down?

Dr. Lennie Waite So I would say IO sports psychologists are more traditionally trained in workplace health and wellbeing. So not, not all of them are gonna work in sports. They're not all gonna have foundational theories of like, what does motivation in sports specifically look like? They're gonna be trained more in what does that look like in terms of general worker wellbeing. Or, IO psychologists are heavily trained a little bit more in terms of like statistics and analyses at a macro level. So they're gonna be really looking at how do you zoom out and do research, in order to figure out what the needs of the organization are. And then oftentimes sports psychologists are more trained in that one-on-one interaction of supporting the athlete where that athlete is at without taking into consideration their larger context of their environment.

Stef At Voice in Sport, we're really trying to bring together the best experts from all of these different dimensions. And so I think your experience is so valuable and really perfect for the conversation we're gonna have today around kind of the effects that eating disorders might have on our teammates or just the environment that we're in, what that can create in terms of culture.

So I think it's pretty incredible to have you on this podcast, but also your experience as an elite athlete yourself. So you were a two-time NCAA All-American before moving on to compete nationally and then internationally for Scotland and Great Britain. And in your primary event, the 3000 meter steeplechase, you are a two-time European championship team silver medalist. You also were a top 10 finisher at the Commonwealth Games, and you participated both in the 2016 Olympics and the 2017 World Track and Field Championships. In the midst of all of this professional athleticism that you were in your own journey there, you also earned a master of arts and psychology degree and your PhD in industrial organizational psychology.

So it's really amazing your journey. I wanna know kind of where it all started. Can you bring us back to when you were a young athlete yourself and when did you start originally struggling with some of the subjects that we're gonna cover today?

Dr. Lennie Waite My goodness. Like when I reflect back, I honestly probably started struggling with a lot of these things in high school, but I felt like the language didn't exist to vocalize these struggles. So I don't even think I recognized it. It's really only upon reflection. But I think as many athletes are just so driven on achieving my athletic goals and then balancing the academics that these things were going on, but it's constantly trying to push forward and didn't have the vocabulary or the labels for a lot of the things I was going through.

Stef Well, and you bring up such an important part, right? Like, how do we talk about our bodies? How do we talk about confidence and food is so important. And a big part of that comes to the role of the coach but also the role of the parent because many habits are picked up by your parents in the household. And then as athletes, where we spend a lot of our time is with our coaches and our teammates. So there's so much power and impact from what is said, from a coach or a parent to an athlete. So I wanna go back to kind of your experience. Back when you were asked, to basically lose weight as a young runner, and, and walk us through what happened in that experience and how that shaped your, I guess passion for the area of study you went down.

Dr. Lennie Waite Yeah. So as a high school athlete, I was multi-sport, so I played soccer and ran track and I had three different coaches throughout high school, and one of the coaches throughout my tenure in high school, had me do a workout.

And I just thought it was like a really strange workout. He had me run with a weight vest on. And after I ran a 400 meter rep with a weight vest, he asked me how that felt. And I said, that felt really hard. And he said, well, think how good it would feel if you lost eight pounds. He was trying to tell me, like, you would be lighter, you could be like the best in the nation.

Like if you just kind of took control of your eating and you limited basically obviously like limited your food intake, you could be great. I was just really shocked because I was a good athlete in high school. I ran 2:12 for the 800m already. I felt like I had achieved a lot. And I really hadn't had like a body image issue. And then on the flip side, I also had these soccer coaches telling me if I was gonna play division one soccer, I needed to be stronger and bigger and eat more and run less. And so I would go to one environment and I was told if I was gonna hold the ball at the D-1 one level, I had to gain weight and then another environment if I wanted to be a great runner. I had to lose weight. And I think the language around just weight loss and track and field. And I also looked at like what the nation's best runners looked like, and I didn't feel like I looked like them and I had no desire to restrict, so I thought, you know, I'm just like, running is good and I'm good at it, but it's not for me. Like I'm gonna go the soccer route.

Stef Wow. So that really influenced you to kind of choose soccer and not go the running route, really. I mean, it's so interesting ‘cuz like one conversation, one comment from a coach can completely, and unfortunately put young women down a path that's really unhealthy. And in your case you quit and went the other route but obviously you came back.

So kind of, bring me back through that, I guess that whole, how you reentered the world of running. And then in that re-entry did you struggle with self-confidence or body image then?

Dr. Lennie Waite So when I committed to go to Rice to play soccer, I had always had it in the back of my head, like maybe there'd be an opportunity to run as well, ‘cuz I knew it was something I had experienced success with. And after my soccer season, the Rice track coach, Jim Bevin, he's still there today. He's amazing. He came out with a uniform and he, like, come run an 800 for us. We're just driving down to Stephen F. Austin, you haven't trained, but I, I've seen you run up and down the wing on the soccer field. I want you to do it. So I took him up on it because I think that just the way that he approached me was like, here's a uniform, get on the bus, it's gonna be fun. No one had ever talked to me about track just in that kind of like lighthearted tone before. And it's like he knew my wiring, like within seconds of meeting me he understood how to get me excited about running. And I remember we went down to Stephen F. Austin and I ran an 800, I think I ran like 2:16 or something.

And I had so much fun. And it was the first time that I did really enjoy it. And because I hadn't been training for it and I wasn't in that environment, I think all of those, like body image concerns or concerns, I didn't look like the people around me. They just hadn't been in my brain for a while. And so yeah, just had fun and then did a couple other meets and then the next year played soccer again, and then after my sophomore soccer season transitioned to run,

Stef Amazing. I love that story, and I love that you bring it back to fun, I mean, I feel like we forget that sometimes. That's how we started and then it gets really competitive and then all of a sudden you lose some of that love and remembering why you started in the first place. When you look back and you think about your younger self, what advice would you have to coaches and parents out there when it comes to commenting on young women's bodies?

Dr. Lennie Waite I would say don't. Even if it's a compliment of, you look really great, depending on the person, like even that can be dangerous because you don't know what that person is trying to do and what you're reinforcing. And I was thinking about this in the buildup to this podcast like, There were times I wish I had more confidence that my body would find its set point with good training and good nutrition without me having to worry about it.

I think I put a lot of stress and energy into thinking that was gonna be a big performance factor. And honestly, I got to where I needed to be at the right time of year by doing things right, and I could have eliminated that stress and worry. And I think when you are an athlete and you're training right, and your nutrition is right, and of course you're gonna have hormonal fluctuations and just your developmental pathway is gonna be different than the person’s next to you.

And so you may not look the same as them, but if you can just have faith that you're doing things right, you'll end up where you need to be at the time you need to be, but it might not be the time that you want it to be.

Stef I think that's so critical. What do you think about this idea the performance trajectory of women athletes when it comes to running? Because we don't think it's linear. And I talked about this with Elise Cranney the other day, another VIS mentor, absolute amazing athlete and role model for our community. But she was talking about just how, you know, we can't think of the journey of young women runners as just this straight line, Right. Because we do go through getting our period and developing our bodies and that whole path is different. Right. From where you sit as a sports psychologist, how would you talk about that performance trajectory for young women, but also for coaches?

Dr. Lennie Waite So I remember I pulled some data in 2018 looking at who made it to the Texas state track and field championships for men and for women. So if you look at the boys chart, they had two freshmen finishing in the top 100, 13 sophomores, 41 juniors and 44 seniors. So like a kind of a, a development where if you're a freshman or sophomore boy, you're probably not gonna make it to state if you're a junior or a senior. Yes. So like very age training dependent. Then you look at the chart for the girls and it's like 18 freshmen, 32 sophomores, 19 juniors, 30 seniors. So you're thinking like there's no Linear developmental trajectory there. It goes up and down. And that's like, to me, that visual is exactly what female sports is in high school.

You go up and down and it doesn't necessarily make sense and it's not predictable and you don't know what's coming and your coach doesn't know what's coming. So preparing them for the uncertainty. And it's hard to think about how you do that ‘cuz you never wanna go up to a freshman girl and say, Hey, I know you made it to state this year, but you, you might not next year and you might like never, be as good and that's not your fault, but that's just like, what's gonna happen.

So it's like, you don't wanna say it like that, but you wanna make people really aware there are these unique challenges of being a female athlete that make training more and, and just growing older isn’t necessarily gonna make you get better each year. You're probably gonna have a little bit of a dip.

Stef Love that. A lot of us, especially young women athletes, were like, we can run faster than the boys. Let's you know, sport brings out this sort of competition, but it also brings out the idea of equity. And you get on the field, you can sometimes leave all that gender stuff behind and that's part of why we love sports so much. But then on the flip side, if you kind consistently compare yourself to a young boy and young men runners, and their trajectory of performance, then I feel like that's where there's like some big misses for the culture of running and where coaches really need to understand this trajectory.

But I want the young girls out there, now, in our community to hear from you, like, what are those things that they should just be aware from the contextual standpoint about what it means to be a young woman runner. So they're not looking at themselves and saying, oh my gosh, well, I'm not progressing like this in them like that, and something must be wrong with me.

And then they have these messages of lighter is faster, which we're gonna talk about later. And that then leads to disordered eating and eating disorders.

Dr. Lennie Waite So I would say the number one thing is like get your period, navigate it. Ride the roller coaster of like the weight gain that goes with it and the changes that go with it. And recognize that your male counterparts, while you're getting your period and getting pumped with hormones that aren't necessarily going to. You being lighter and faster in that moment. Men are getting pumped up with testosterone and they're gonna get stronger and faster. So that is just a different pathway. And what seems like you are fighting a little bit of an uphill battle of learning your body and learning how to perform with it instead of it just kind of taking you on a performance journey on its own.

Stef So number one lesson, love your period. Love it. When you get it, try to keep it.

Dr. Lennie Waite Yes, absolutely. Try to keep it and appreciate the changes. It's pretty incredible what women are capable of. And a big portion of that is because we get our period.

Stef And let's a little bit about that, the correlation I guess, of that under fueling and not getting your period? And so some of the work that you do specifically around disordered eating and eating disorders, I wanna first break down just the definition and the distinction between the two. So let's start with that.

Dr. Lennie Waite So even for me, the distinction can be blurred, right? And I think people use the term disordered eating because they don't necessarily know if the person has a diagnosis of an eating disorder. And to me that's the safer terminology to use, not mislabel somebody. I also think that in sports, there's this element of the environment supports a little bit of disordered eating in terms of performance outcomes.

And so because we think about that, it's like, oh, that person doesn't have an eating disorder. They're a distance runner, or they're dancer, or they're a gymnast. And so this disordered eating is part of that, which is a whole other area to explore on how we reword that and discuss that. If you just think about what is the diagnosis for an eating disorder, you're really looking at energy intake restriction. And that covers, if you think about people who have disordered eating or an eating disorder, they're both gonna have that energy restriction. They're gonna have a fear of gaining weight, that excessive fear of gaining weight.

I think the majority of people I've come across with or worked with an eating disorder or even who say they have disordered eating have that fear of weight gain. and then there's the disturbance in their weight. So they're going to be extremely thin, they're going to be underweight. And there are other examples of people who have maybe atypical anorexia who they might not actually look like they are below normal weight, but they also are. So there's that element too, of, we think with our eyes, we think that we can tell the difference between disordered eating and eating disorders. But again, everybody's body is different. Some person could have atypical anorexia where they're not actually below that normal weight, but they really are restricting in terms of intake.

I think the disordered eating is the term that we use because that athlete is still performing very highly in their sport. So because it's not necessarily interfering with their performance goals or because they look like they're doing great, they couldn't have an eating disorder. But there's a spectrum there and it's a very fine line.

Stef Well, I think it's really important to talk about the spectrum. I think some, some athletes, moms, parents, coaches might just think, oh, I have an image of what eating disorders is, whether that is bulimia or anorexia, but many don't talk about the other side of the spectrum of disordered eating and sort of what, does that look like and how do I look out for that in my daughter?

Because when it starts as a disordered eating problem in sport, it can quickly go down that or up the spectrum to eating disorders, if not caught before, and if not addressed through incredible experts like yourself. So I, just wanna talk a little bit about like, how do you keep an eye out for your young daughter in sport?

What are the things that you look for when it comes to disordered eating that we should, as parents be, be looking for in our daughters or for the athletes listening, if they're seeing this in themselves or their friends it might be a good time to reach out to an expert.

Dr. Lennie Waite Yeah, so I think you see a preoccupation with thoughts or food oftentimes. So you see athletes maybe taking longer to prepare a perfect meal, trying to make their eating perfect, trying to have a lot of control of what's on their plate. I think you see oftentimes people even talking more about food as they start to enter disordered eating and then restricting in terms of what they're eating, they suddenly can't eat certain food groups. You also see just elements of excessive control in certain areas, whether it's control over running certain mileage or making sure you're hitting certain paces or having meals at a certain time in a certain manner. So you start to see some rigidity into their routine that maybe wasn't there before. You also see it in terms of, I think, changes in mood. So I would say lower positive affect, a bit more anxiety, maybe trouble adjusting as that athlete is getting into disordered eating.

Stef And what, what are some of the impacts, I guess, that you've witnessed with disordered eating and eating disorders in terms of their performance trajectory? Kind of taking it back to kind of where we started in the podcast.

Dr. Lennie Waite Yeah, so this is why a lot of young girls get eating disorders is oftentimes because a peak in performance initially. There can be this increase in training, lowering your intake of food, get lighter faster for a very short period of time, and that breaks down quickly. And how quickly, honestly, depends on the individual.

So there's no specific timeline that this happens, but it will manifest in terms of stress fractures, stress reactions because they're, they're gonna lose their period, which is gonna impact their bone health. They're also gonna have social consequences. It's hard to not have an eating disorder or disordered eating and be around people who do and who are having success. And then the strain that causes in the team environment and on that person's social relationships. So they're gonna have social consequences as well.

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Elizabeth Thank you for listening to the Voice in Sport podcast. My name is Elizabeth Martin, a VIS creator from Emory University and producer of this week's episode. If you enjoy hearing from Lennie Waite and would like to get the chance to talk to experts like her, go to voiceinsport.com/join to sign up for a free membership and gain access to exclusive episodes, mentorship sessions, and other weekly content.

Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok  @voiceinsport. Now let's get back to the episode. (background music stops)

Stef It's so important that young women today hear this from you. I mean, you were an athlete yourself and now you're in the field of trying to prevent and treat both disordered eating and eating disorders. So you had to kind of whisper to a young girl today who might be on that spectrum of starting to restrict what would you wanna whisper to her?

Dr. Lennie Waite Yeah. I would tell them that there's no shortcuts to success. And the best way to be successful is to do things the right way, which is to fuel yourself. And the consequences of underfueling yourself are so severe that it's never gonna bring you to your long-term goals. And if they can start developing confidence in who they are, and as a human with the body that they have, and trust their natural developmental trajectory, they're gonna end up happier.

Stef Absolutely. And that's why we bring together the mentors at VIS and the experts like yourself, right? Because sometimes you need to hear it from a pro athlete who's in it right now, like an Elise Cranny or Colleen Quigley. And sometimes you need to sit down with somebody like you and have a conversation.

So where do you start with just one girl? When you're having a conversation about kind of changing their mindset, where do you start? Because as a sports psychologist many might think, oh my, if my daughter is struggling with an eating disorder or showing some of these signs, I should take her to a registered dietician.

And obviously food and what you're eating is really important to your success and kind of making sure that you have a great support system - that's a component of it. But the other component is the sports psychology side. So where do you start with young women? You know, also just to kind of a little bit, take the covers off, like if somebody's frightened to come to a sports psychologist and start this process, just where do you start?

Dr. Lennie Waite I start at like what are your longer term goals and like what is their journey in their sport and what are they trying to achieve? And starting a conversation around sustainability in a sport and doing things for the long run. ‘Cause most of the time when people start having eating issues, they're at the earlier stage of their career. Like even if it's their freshman year of college, like they still have four or five years of college. So there's so much time. I try to back up and eliminate a sense of time, urgency for achieving a certain performance, and think about things in terms of stepping stones and sustainability and doing things the right way.

And I bring. as many positive examples, as many atypical body types, doing incredible things as I can. And then I also push heavily for education on nutrition. I have some great friends in the Houston area -  shout out to Kim and Meredith, who I always suggest as the registered dieticians to work in tandem with me.

So they're really pushing education like, this is what nutrition looks like, these are the things that you need to be doing. And they're holding them accountable in terms of exactly what they're putting into their bodies, and then I'm holding them accountable or, or really checking in on like, how are they processing this? Are they able to take the education and implement it? There's still places where it's like slipping through because they're often people, like they have the knowledge, but they can't take the action. So how can I make sure that that knowledge then results in change in behavior? and that looks different for every athlete ‘cuz they struggle with something differently. Whether it's the simple thing of like, oh, well I can't eat before noon because I'm never hungry. It's like, well, we, we gotta shift that. Or, you know, on hard workout days, I'm so afraid that my stomach is gonna be upset, so it's just best if I have nothing.

So there can be these pitfalls or these just assumptions that these athletes have that you're continually trying to shift. And the hardest one for me is always when athletes have had an eating disorder and their personal best result is from that time. And they will always ask me and they'll look for me to give them the answer of, will I be better than I was? I wanna tell them like, yes. And in one, in, one regard, yes, you will be better in terms of you will be like a healthy functioning human. But I don't know, like, I don't actually know if you're gonna run as fast as you did, and like that process of coming to terms with some people, they really might not hit the same performance that they did when they were extremely malnourished, but reframing their life to understand that there's more to it.

So then there's also an identity component of how do we transition away from having all your identity and self-worth, your best time, as an athlete into something else.

Stef Well that's, that's a perfect transition to kind the research that we know that's out there that shows that the prime age for disordered eating and eating disorders is between 12 and 25. I think it was a Hopkins um, all children's study that just showed that 95% of people with eating disorders were between those ages.

So, I really wanna get your point of view, I guess, on why disordered eating and eating disorders are so prevalent during this time for young girls and women in sport.

Dr. Lennie Waite I, yeah, I think a lot of it just has to do with puberty, hormonal changes then I feel like there are stressors, people are going new environments where they're seeking control, whether it's transitioning into college, whether it's transitioning out of college the way that our body responds to stress hormonally and the changes that it makes in our, in our bodies, I think are the, the reasons that like that is the age group.

I mean, I think also in terms of general personality, like we tend to have higher anxiety during that age of, in our life. So I think there's a lot of underlying psychopathology that females are susceptible to, in that age range that puts them at higher risk for eating disorders and disordered eating.

Stef So why do you think it is that so often eating disorders and disordered eating goes undiagnosed? I mean, are the girls in sport speaking up about these topics, you know, to their coaches and being ignored? Or is it just something that is not being talked about in the culture of running?

Dr. Lennie Waite Yeah. It's not being talked about. And, again, one of the main indicators of an eating disorder is no interest in talking about the fact that there is an eating disorder. So it's very rare, unless somebody gets to the point where they're having such malnutrition that they're scared that they're not gonna survive, that they're gonna admit that there's an issue. I think another big part of it too is there's still a massive discrepancy in female to male coaching ratio. The majority of these females are gonna have male coaches and those coaches may be excellent coaches, but there's very few male coaches that are fully armed with the courage and knowledge to address this issue with young athletes and potentially fear like, what if I say something wrong? And then there's the fact that they're maybe getting some great performances from those athletes and they don't wanna lose those great performances.

Stef Yeah, I think it's one of the things we hear about a lot, it's just like how to start that conversation with your coach, because we know the dynamics right now across the industry is that there are not enough women coaches. So the likelihood is you're going to be showing up at practice and saying to your male coach something, and we want to encourage all young women to be very upfront and bold to say, hey, heads up, I'm on my period, here's how I'm feeling. I'm on day number two or day number three, or whatever it is. And you know, it takes courage to kind of change that culture, but it starts with us and it starts with the coaches also, not being afraid to talk about that subject.

So if there are coaches and parents listening out there, what's the number one kind of educational piece I guess you want them to start reading about or learning about to be a better coach for young women runners.

Dr. Lennie Waite Yeah. The importance of the menstrual cycle for the female athlete. And then for them also, like what are some of the signs, the early warning signs that athletes are potentially underfueling beyond what their eyes see. Because I think that's what a lot of coaches and parents use is like, how does my daughter look?

Or how do my athletes look? And there are so many examples of people suffering from this. And I think they also have fear that this person is like doing so well, and they're so happy with their performances that they don't want to derail them. And that's, that's a myth. So that person may look happy and like they're doing well in the moment where they're crossing the finish line or acing their workouts. But I see those athletes behind the scenes and they're not doing well. You're not ruining their life. You're saving their life. So just really elevating the importance of in order to be a great athlete, long term. You have to take care of your body. We only get one body and it has to last us our entire life.

Stef Thank you so much. I mean, so important to talk about, and this leads us kind of perfectly into the discussion of contagion and social contagion. So I'm gonna get a little dorky here and just quote the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology because, basically it defines social contagion as the spread of ideas, attitudes, or behavior patterns in a group through imitation or conformity. So, how do we see this really manifesting for women, athletes and teams when it comes to disordered eating and eating disorders?

Dr. Lennie Waite If your best athlete also has an eating disorder or suffers from disordered eating, it can be very dangerous because they're modeling high performance and they're getting reinforced for it in terms of winning awards, winning races, more attention from the coach because that's what happens when you're the number one athlete. And that's where that social contagion of, okay, so if that athlete's getting that and, and I want that, then I need to model that behavior. And it's so challenging for those other athletes on that team to remind themselves that they're doing things right and that they don't have to do that to be good. It's a constant of like them reassuring themselves, them questioning their behavior, recommitting to healthy behavior, questioning it again. And this is where the IO side of my brain of like changing the culture and how we deal with these things. We have to do a better job. And I don't think doing a better job is like caging up that athlete suffering from an eating disorder and not letting them be on the team. That's also very dangerous.

 Coaches at these NCAA division one programs who have these star athletes who do have eating disorders, I would love for them to get together and discuss like, how do we handle this and how do we openly talk about this? How do we make sure we don't fall into this social contagion of where that's actually we're impacting the beliefs and the confidence of other athletes who are trying to do things and eat healthy and fuel their bodies, but aren't getting those same results. How do, how do we help everybody? And it's challenging.

Stef That's why we love you. That's why we're so excited you're part of the VIS community. Cause we're, we're sitting here thinking how do we help as many teams as possible? And that's why we have team sessions on the VIS platform, right, is to get in front of the entire team and talk about these things because mainly it is being discussed with one specific girl, but like the impact, as you mentioned, it can, it can spread across the team very quickly.

So is there any research about just how quickly this type of thing can spread across teams and do you see more social contagion in individual sports or team sports? Like what, what's the research here?

Dr. Lennie Waite I would say there's not a ton of research specifically done on the social contagion aspect. I think if we look a step removed in terms of like social learning theory, even dating back to Bandura's seminal work, we know that people model the behavior of those around them, and they're more likely to model the behavior of those who have higher status or who are viewed as liked or who are viewed as favorable.

So you extract that and you think whether it's a team sport or an individual sport, if someone is having success and they're also under-eating, under-fueling that behavior is very likely going to be modeled. unless there is a real discussion around it, right? There has to be an advocate for doing it the right way. There are also examples of people who are doing things right and who are having success when that person can be a leader and can speak up and has that personality trait where they can really get to follow them. And they can be inspirational. That is equally as powerful. It's just those people don't exist on every team.

Stef We've been talking about a lot of the negative things and we already kind of talked about signs and what to look for, right? But what do you do if you are a girl on the team and know, you see those signs that you were discussing earlier. How do you approach your teammates and support them if you do see them that they're struggling?

Dr. Lennie Waite Okay. So I would say this is like a question that I get from a handful of clients every month of, hey, I think this athlete on my team isn't eating. My coach is in denial about it. I don't want to necessarily tell them because like, I don't know if that's gonna ruin our friendship.

And so we go through it and I always start at like, what like your values as a human, how do you view your value as a friend? Are you looking to support somebody long-term and help them make good decisions and better their lives? If you really want to be a good friend and help them have the life that you know that they deserve, then there's gotta be a way to have this conversation. And there's a way to have it without it coming across as, hey, you need to change your behavior. Now just sitting there and saying, I recognize like I wanna help you. I want you to be a really great athlete and I want you to be great, not this year and next year, but for five years. How can I help you?

Just offering that support and letting them know that you do see them, and it's not always gonna be taken by the person well. They might be in denial and it might take a few iterations, but I think in all of the cases that I've supported athletes, while it feels like they're running up in a brick wall and they're trying to help their friends initially, they do help them, and those friends are really thankful when they reflect back and they think, man, like you were actually one of the people that pushed me seek help or to be able to understand what I was doing to myself.

Stef Yeah. I think it's so important. And at the end of the day, like you said, it comes back to values, the bigger picture and that we're human right, we only have that one body, so how are we going to help not just ourselves, but our teammates? And so often I hear that, that these young girls are getting to college and that's when the disordered eating or eating disorder really is triggered. And that's because you're kind of in a new environment. You’re with like the girls on your team quite often. And you're together a lot. So for the girls that are about to go from high school sports to college sports knowing the stats that we know about the number of young women in college with disordered eating what advice do you have for those young girls that are about to go into college to make sure that they're, you know, that obviously they're aware that like you're gonna be in a team dynamic in a different setting, but how do you make sure that you stay on track?

Dr. Lennie Waite I would say start, start building confidence in who you are as a human and what you like about yourself. Also if you got to that environment, doing things a certain way, like a healthy way, hopefully, then that's the way to continue and recognizing that, yeah, once you step up into that more intense performance environment, you're gonna experience a lot of stress and adversity. You're gonna maybe be frustrated and there's this frustration that you may feel like watching these people do it the wrong way and getting rewarded for it.

And this is something personally that I think of a lot. I think when I was in college, I viewed it as an annoyance when people wouldn't just like eat the pasta that was in front of them or like eat the granola bar. Or I would be like, why are you doing this? I would get frustrated and angry, and I think back and I think like, why didn't you have more empathy or understanding or think about like what is going through their brain and how can you help them?

Instead of having an emotional like, oh, just like eat that food that's there because you're hungry. So now when I talk to athletes, I try and frame it from. Let's focus on you being as healthy as you can be and doing things the right way. And then when you get frustrated at your teammates, let's try to go to a place of like, how challenging must it be for them and how can we help them?

Because anybody who's doing that to themselves isn't healthy. They are really struggling. There's some type of either like psychopathology or self-control or perfectionism or obsessive compulsive behavior that's driving that, that is very challenging to live with. And how can you create space for recognizing that and then encouraging them to seek help instead of getting frustrated or trying to copy the behavior.

Stef Well, and I wanna go back to something that you said about, potentially you might show up on your team and the most successful person on the team actually has an, an eating disorder and is being sort of rewarded by the coach or the school or the system in which the all of the girls are operating within. So if that's a, if that's a situation you walk into, especially if you know your college scholarship is on the line and you feel like, if you speak up, maybe you might get reprimanded in some way.

Dr. Lennie Waite Yeah. So I empower these individuals to be like the agents of change. And it's like I go over the top to be like, you could be the person who could shift this. Like, let's do it the right way. And this is like my personal theory, I think it's so hard to fight some of these battles when you're an athlete in the system. But when you graduate from the system or when you retire from the sport, it's much easier to take those notes and go in and like create change.

So I try to get the athletes excited about how can you be the positive example, and then like, this could be a moment in your career. Where you can be an agent of change for the better for the future. And there's a couple girls that I'm working with right now and that's kind of the language that I use.

And it is really fun because we talk about what they're seeing and like how it can be done better and like maybe the coach is rewarding that athlete with an eating disorder. Or there are cases where athletes are, you know, kind of questioning whether they need to restrict in, in the athlete that I'm working with is kinda empowering them do what's best for their bodies long term. I just, yeah, I just go over the top with that theme.

Stef I love that. That's so VIS. We're all about just, you make change yourself. Don't wait for it, the next person to do It's obviously easier to say that than to do it, but I hope that any young woman who's listening to this podcast can also just hear from the enthusiastic voice here from Dr. Lennie Waite about if you do make that decision to drive that cultural shift, imagine how many young girls you're gonna help that are gonna come up behind you. So I mean, you're also gonna help the incredible women on your team have healthier and happier lives. It's something that we're trying to do at VIS is change that cultural component of running and it starts with the culture, it starts with all the people in the culture, right? And the girls are just as important as the coaches.

So I wanna hammer in down just a little bit more on the coaches though not to, this is not to bash coaches by any means - I'm a big coaching fan - Gotta have the coaches have the sport, but it's so important, like how they communicate to and message their team. So I wanna talk a little bit about education. You know, it's one of the things we do at VIS is create articles and videos about these topics for the girls. But what do you think is like kind of the most important components of education on this topic?

And should there be screenings as part of these women athletes coming into these programs at the schools? Because we often hear, you know, certain scans like DEXA scans and body pods kind of being used more as a negative tool to track weight and body composition and sort of be used as almost like a measure of dedication.

And, they're really misused at the college level. And in fact, there was a New York Times article that most of our VIS athletes were featured in really discussing how the misuse of these data points in the culture. So I would really be curious to know from your perspective, when it comes to education and to that environment and culture what really needs to change.

Dr. Lennie Waite I think the first thing is I think coaches need great education from people like you. Registered dieticians, they need to have an understanding of how to talk about this specifically, I think it's hardest for male coaches, for young female athletes, and that is like a lot of the cases. And so how can they get trained on this?

And then how can they learn just a few phrases or a few things to implement at practice. Like they're, They're not, you know, a psychologist, they're not an RD, but they need to reinforce a culture and what culture do they wanna create, and how can a team of experts help them build that so that they have the language down on what they're trying to do.

And they may have to get out of their like, oh, like, looks like you're getting race ready, or like, oh, looking fit to, you know, like they have these comments that maybe they like, learned that they think are positive, that it's like, ah, it looks like maybe like, let's not use those anymore.

Stef I Can we just pause right there. and just, I wanna say some of these phrases so that like, if anyone's listening to this podcast, they know that, oh my gosh. Like, dang, I say that all the time. And then they can stop saying it to all the coaches that are out there, don't say the following things:

Lighter is faster.

Dr. Lennie Waite Yeah, you, you look like you're getting race-ready.

Stef You look like you've lost some weight. You look great.

Dr. Lennie Waite Your abs look like they could win this race.

Stef You know, if you would just lose a couple pounds, I think you'd be in the best shape for this event.

Dr. Lennie Waite You got back from spring break and it's early season, but we'll get your body where it needs to be by the time nationals come around.

Stef You didn't get your period. That's great. That means you're really dedicated.

But in all seriousness, I mean, I think this is so important. It is one comment that really can trigger really bad behavior in your team and in your culture. So it is your job as a coach to be more careful about the words coming outta your mouth.

And then also, let's maybe flip it and say, okay, what are powerful, positive things that coaches can say to women athletes?

Dr. Lennie Waite I think things like, you're trusting the process. You're doing everything right. like if you trust the training program in, you're in, you'll get to where you need to be at the right time.

Stef How about an incredible performance today?

Dr. Lennie Waite Yeah.

Stef Nothing about their actual body

Dr. Lennie Waite Yep

Stef Or their weight

Dr. Lennie Waite Even I'm thinking when coaches give athletes kudos for like making it through a hard rep when they were falling off the back, right. When you're really actually digging into the, the physical and the mental performance side and less so on the looks.

Stef Yeah, it's interesting. I I had this conversation with this journalist who provides sort of the stats for all of the kind of broadcaster and commentators for all these Olympic events. And one of the things I mentioned to him is like, hey, isn't it interesting how certain broadcasters talk about women athletes versus male athletes? And he's like, what do you mean? I was like, what do I mean? Like it happens all the time. And I was having this conversation about how constantly, it's less about performance, it's more about commenting on our bodies.

And like he sort of looked at me like, really? And I'm like, yeah, really. Like we need, we need to change that, right? And so I think just keeping it focused on performance is a good one.

Dr. Lennie Waite Yeah, the year Allie Ostrander won the steeplechase at NCAA championships and she called out the people for incorrectly quoting her height and her weight and making physical appearance comments. And I used that example in class just to hold my students accountable. These are things that are happening that you just think you're used to hearing.

And so some let it slide, but we don't let these things slide. we bring them up. We try to create change through them. Yeah, we try to be seen for our physical performances.

Stef Absolutely. Well, and Allie's also a VIS mentor and an incredible woman coming back from also a pretty, pretty tough spot. So I guess just to kind of wrap up our conversation here, to leave the young women and also the parents of these young women out there under to understand, like prevention. I wanna just start there.

What is the most important thing when it comes to preventing disordered eating or eating disorders in young women athletes?

Dr. Lennie Waite I lead with education first and normalization. So telling them a little bit about the signs, the symptoms, why people go down that path, what things to look at, what are the long-term consequences just in terms of what risks you're putting your body at.

Not only today, but next year in five years and in 10 years with knowledge, there's power, at least I feel like I've given them the ability to make the decision. And then beyond that, it's positive reinforcement from the support system. So parents, coaches, peers are really central in that, and if they're still like suffering, and then it's taking the initiative to actually get one-on-one support.

Stef I love that. Education is power. I say that as well to my team. It's so important. Okay. So in conclusion, I'd love to hear, you know, I know you gave a lot of amazing advice to young girls out there today, but if you take a step back and just think about your younger self in sport, what is one piece of advice that you have to all girls in sport?

Dr. Lennie Waite I would tell them you'll get there on your own timeline. I think I see people fight their timeline. I saw myself fight my timeline and upon reflection, if I could have had more confidence, and if I can continue to fill my athletes with the confidence that they'll get to where they need to be when it matters, that takes away a lot of the mental torment that we give ourselves.

Stef And I feel like I know the answer to this question, but what is one thing you'd like to see changed for the future of women's sports?

Dr. Lennie Waite I feel like I wanna see more women in leadership and coaching positions, instigating the change and the policies. Specifically just like a, a little research interest of mine is, you know, we, we know that historically sports were designed for men by men, and we're trying really hard think like, what does it look like to design training programs specifically for women.

I mean, one thing that we didn't get into today is track is one of those strange sports in high school where. Men and women are trained under the same coach. And so yeah, we're making advances in recognizing unique female physiology and training cycles and integrating knowledge of the menstrual cycle in that training. And understanding just the development and women can be great for longer and the things that impact their performance or different that would impact men.

But there's also, like, as a psychologist, there's also a psychological component of that. So a lot of coaching principles are also based on like, what do men respond to in terms of motivation, discipline, what is viewed as good behavior, and how do we get male athletes to adhere to a training protocol. Even the psychological side for women is slightly different. So just in terms of the communication that you use. So designing programs physiologically and psychologically that are suited better for females, and that will happen when we have more female coaches and female leaders.

Stef Yes. Here is to all the women coaches out there. And to all of you listening, hope you become a coach soon.

Dr. Lennie Waite Yeah. Yeah.

Stef Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming to the Voice in Sport Podcast and we're excited to have you on the platform.

Dr. Lennie Waite Yeah. Stef, thanks so much for having me. It was really fun today.

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Stef This week's episode was co-produced and edited by VIS creators, Quincy McMahon, Lindsay Lawson, and Elizabeth Martin. Dr. Lennie Waite reminds us of the importance of fueling our bodies and how we can have the confidence to make healthy decisions for ourselves and encourage others to do the same. Her passion for women’s advocacy and changing the language around eating disorders and disordered eating inspires us all to be agents of change for our friends, our teammates, and ourselves.

We're so grateful to have Dr. Lennie Waite as part of the VIS community as a VIS Expert. And if you haven't already, go check out her amazing sessions or request a one on one session with her today, you can click on the share button in this episode and send it to another athlete that you think might enjoy our conversation.

And if you liked our conversation with Dr. Lennie Waite, please leave us a rating and review on Apple and Spotify. If you want to know more about how to create a healthy relationship with your body as a woman athlete, and you're logged into the Voice in Sport platform, head to the feed and select body to check out our article titled, ‘Checklist, knowing our bodies as girls and women in sport.’ This is a great guide on how we can be more in tune with our bodies as women athletes. and of course, if you want to learn more about understanding your menstrual cycle, check out Voice in Sport podcast, episode number 93.

In this episode, I talked to Dr. Stacey Sims about how your period can enhance your performance at Voice in Sport. We believe your period is your superpower. Thank you for listening to the Voice in Sport podcast and see you next week.

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