23. Mental health challenges faced by

Simone Biles pictured at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Biles withdrew from the 2021 Olympics women's gymnastics team final for mental health reasons. CREDIT: AGÊNCIA BRASIL FOTOGRAFIAS/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS LICENSED UNDER CC BY 4.0

Mental health challenges faced by athletes require specialized care, say U of G community members

Gymnast Simone Biles’ recent step away from the Olympics prompts worldwide conversations on just how much support athletes need

ELENI KOPSAFTIS

Trigger warning: This article contains mention of eating disorders.

At the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, American Gymnast and World Champion Simone Biles performed what looked like an incredible vault during her gymnastics team’s finals. She left the stage, returned with her trainer … and then withdrew from the competition.

Biles later explained she suffered from “the twisties” during her vault, a dangerous state in which gymnasts lose their sense of spatial awareness while in the air.

The twisties can be greatly exacerbated by stress, according to the New York Post. Biles’ withdrawal from the competition was a result of her needing to focus on her mental health and subsequently prevent herself from getting injured.

While the global pandemic has highlighted the importance of mental health, the sports scene is often one that encourages athletes to ‘tough it out’ and focus squarely on physical performance. Even Biles faced harsh criticism from public figures for backing out of the competition, such as Broadcaster Piers Morgan calling her mental health concerns “a joke.”

With mental health already so stigmatized, these additional struggles can cause athletic communities to suffer.

Peter Disera is a Canadian mountain biker who finished 26th during the Tokyo Olympics. At the 2019 UCI World Championships, he finished 5th in the relay. What’s more, he is a 2018 graduate from the University of Guelph.

Although he doesn’t identify as ever chronically struggling with mental health, Disera told The Ontarion that athletic cyclists — especially women — are more likely to suffer from eating disorders due to the balance between power and weight.

He remarks having a friend and teammate who was very underweight but was fortunately able to achieve a healthier weight after listening to doctors, although “his relationship with food will always be tainted with the [idea] that food and fueling makes you slower.”

Cycling has the added mental health benefit of spending lots of time outdoors, but Disera states that “cycling and other weight based sports do provide an enablement and intensifies [eating disorders and illnesses].” In cycling, this is partly due to lighter individuals being able to go uphill faster.

Some cyclists, such as Disera, will ‘lean out’ — or get their body fat percentage as low as possible — before a race. The safe way to do this is under the direction and watchful eye of a registered dietician and nutritionist, however, some athletes will continue or intensify the practice outside the recommendations. This is when eating disorders can emerge.

These illnesses are as prevalent in other sports as they are in cycling.

Former U of G athlete Samantha Beattie recalls running next to teammates who had fractured bones, anorexia, or bulimia while practicing for track and field. She even ran through colds, anemia, and allergic reactions herself.

According to an article Beattie wrote for HuffPost, these unhealthy behaviours were encouraged by a “toxic running culture” at the university as well as pressure from a disgraced former U of G coach.

Beattie was never connected to sports psychologists or dietitians. Instead, she and her teammates were encouraged by a sports physiologist to lose weight and slim out their thighs. In hindsight, Beattie “[couldn’t] believe how thin [she] was” despite remembering her worries over being larger than other runners.

“Mental health needs to be an integral part of any training plan,” said Beattie. “Eating disorders need to be thought of as more than an unfortunate symptom of the sport … Female athletes need to be listened to. We aren’t disposable. Every part of us needs to be respected — our bodies, our emotions, our passions, our vulnerabilities.”

A 2017 Canadian clinical journal authored by Dr. Krista Van Slingerland and 10 other researchers sought to investigate mental health care service provisions for competitive and high-performance athletes and identify any gaps in care. A group consisting of mental health care practitioners, sports medicine physicians, coaches, support staff, and several other members of various disciplines consulted on the issue.

Together, they observed an increased susceptibility to mental health challenges and disorders in athletes. Further, they determined that athletes are best served by a specialized interdisciplinary mental health care team.

Subsequently, the group concluded that sports organizations and coaches have a duty to protect and foster the mental health of their athletes.

At U of G, general mental health resources (including individual and group counselling) are open to anyone, such as through Student Accessibility Services, Student Wellness, and peer support through the Student Support Network. However, as shown by the cycling and track team’s experiences, athletes need specialized sports psychologists and dietitians.

Varsity athletes at U of G are currently offered several different mental health resources.

For example, there is the Athletes in Action program, a faith-based organization that supports varsity student athletes on campus. It is led through a Christian lens, though anyone with a spiritual or religious background is welcome.

They also have access to the Student Athlete Mentors (SAM), a group of upper-year student athletes assigned to first-year athletes to check in with their academic and emotional needs.

Some of these mentors are also connected to a broader organization called the Student Athlete Mental Health Initiative, a Canada-wide peer support network that provides mental health tools and workshops for student athletes.

SAMs are given mental health training through the university’s Wellness Centre, and the assignment of a SAM to a firstyear athlete is “mandatory,” says Carrie Charles, who is the coordinator for mental health and varsity athletes at the university.

A registered psychotherapist and point person for mental health for varsity athletes, Charles has been working at the U of G for 12 years, and she and other social workers and psychotherapists have been doing group and individual therapy as well as crisis work for students.

As of October, Charles will be leading a new six-week confidential therapy group for managing stress and anxiety in varsity sport. Participants will be given cognitive behavioural therapy tools to better deal with those specific emotional barriers.

The group will be the first of its kind at U of G, and it is based on a survey conducted by Charles in the spring of 2021 to gauge what varsity athletes at the U of G wanted out of their mental health supports. Dealing with stress and anxiety were ranked highly by those who participated in the survey.

The survey also examined any barriers between varsity athletes and mental health resources at the U of G, including a lack of anonymity in existing services and students not knowing about said resources, though Charles acknowledges that these barriers may have changed since the survey was given.

Other mental health concerns these athletes had were coping with injuries, having an identity outside of sports, dealing with depression, disordered eating, and substance abuse.

As this is the group’s first year running, stress and anxiety are currently the only themes from the survey being explored.

With athletes like Biles setting public examples to prioritize mental health over sport, local athletic leaders and organizations must follow suit and actively encourage their athletes’ wellbeing, and take preventative measures against mental health challenges and the negative stigma associated with them.

“Everyone is the master of their own wellbeing, and if removing yourself from competition is part of that, then great … only the individual can be the judge,” says Disera.

Carrie Charles’ therapy group for managing stress and anxiety in varsity sport will run from Oct. 13, 2021, until Nov. 17, 2021 from 10:30 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. each week. Those who are interested can sign up by calling the front desk of the U of G’s Counselling Services at (519) 824-4120 ext. 53244.

For other mental health resources, students can contact Health Services at 519-824-4120 ext. 52131.

For crisis lines and after-hours support: Good2Talk for confidential support services for post-secondary students at 1-866-925-3247 Here 24/7 for addictions, mental health & crisis services at 1-844437-3247

Care and Treatment Centre for Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence at 519-837-6440 Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis 24-Hour Crisis Line at 519836-5710

Everyone is the master of their own wellbeing, and if removing yourself from competition is part of that, then great … only the individual can be the judge.

— Peter Disera