KathrynC
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
There has been an ongoing discussion about how puberty in girls is handled in competitive sports on a rock climbing forum that I frequent, prompted by this article in the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/sports/katelyn-tuohy.html and this article on the climbing forum that was written by a former member of the British competition climbing squad https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/growing_pains_-_the_weight_of_womanhood-10942.
These articles were both very resonant for me as I went through puberty as a competitive gymnast and gave up competing at 18 because I found the environment very unhealthy - puberty and the associated changes in body shape and metabolism were very much viewed as annoyances and the drive was to try and keep weight off rather than embracing and learning how to live with a changing body.
I didn't have any particular point to make, but I thought these articles might be of interest to some on here and we might get some interesting discussion out of it.
These articles were both very resonant for me as I went through puberty as a competitive gymnast and gave up competing at 18 because I found the environment very unhealthy - puberty and the associated changes in body shape and metabolism were very much viewed as annoyances and the drive was to try and keep weight off rather than embracing and learning how to live with a changing body.
I didn't have any particular point to make, but I thought these articles might be of interest to some on here and we might get some interesting discussion out of it.
