"Why Don’t You Lose 5 Pounds?" - Nancy Kerrigan documentary

Zemgirl said:
While models are typically thin, I've been seeing more and more messages along the lines of "real women have curves". How is this better than making thin people an ideal? It's still telling women that something is wrong with them if they don't fit a certain standard, but with a different standard applied.
Some real women have curves. Some don't. The message should be that real women come in all shapes, sizes and appearances.
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Nobody is questioning if a living woman “is real”, or any living human for that matter.

But all humans are born with different shapes and features: forms, height, weight, and with different talents and abilities. Such features affect what activities “a particular human” can succeed in, not just in sports but practically in everything. If a person does not have a voice, he/she can not become an opera singer. If one is afraid of heights, one can’t become a fire fighter… etc.

There are 4 main issues (as I see it) associated with “shape/weight”.
- Athletics/Physical features of an individual – do directly influence and affect success in many types of sports.
- Health/danger to health – should take priority over any sports requirements.
- Aesthetics – a personal preference.
- Sexual attraction – even more personal and complex.

In sports which do have prominent requirements for “shape/form/weight/height”, unless “the liberal society” wants to lower the plank and make an even playing field for the “less fortunate” who not born with required features, the MESSAGE should be “evaluate yourself, your abilities, your health properly” against what is required to succeed in a particular activity”, and if you don’t have it, go do something else; don’t bitch about your age, your shape, your forms.. If you’re not shaped to jump, run, dive, balance, stretch… it’s not others fault! Find another activity, you don’t have what it takes… or stay, but then accept that your results will not be high…

….do we want to limit Ladies’ figure skating routines to only 3 double-jumps, to accommodate busty/butty Gedevanishvili…
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Elene_GEDEVANISHVILI_TEB2009.jpg

… so that she can compete with someone like Sasha Cohen and hinder Sasha Cohen’s progress and possibilities?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_i5JIyaSR6cg/S11P8u0fj9I/AAAAAAAADLg/psUHSua5jUA/s400/Sasha+Cohen3.jpg

Aesthetics… I grew up in USSR, without “top fashion models”, “western adverts with beautiful women”, in a country with relatively unhealthy diet where most women in late 20’s and on lost shape and became “very round”, and where “female beauty standard” was “farm and factory worker”…

And yet since the age of 6-7, when parents took me to art museums, and later in life, I found human shapes on paintings by Rubens, Boucher, etc.. very unpleasant to look at, preferring human shapes by Botticelli, Erte, Whistler, and the likes…

This is the images of soviet athletes and celebrities I grew up with which were shoved into my face and brain for 13 years, without alternatives..
http://russian7.ru/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/01.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kbLJXJtPoCY/UZET5IVHE5I/AAAAAAAAA5k/PaN8a-uSeLc/s1600/01.jpg
https://kulturologia.ru/files/u19001/Svetlana-Svetlichnaya-2.jpg (soviet movie star).

….. and yet I immediately fell in love with images of Whistler http://www.artsandartists.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Whistler-1.jpg and Erte https://www.artbrokerage.com/art/erte/_images/erte_87895_6.jpg because of their elongate shapes without “extra meat”. Nobody taught me, nobody influenced me; there were no conversations at ALL on the subject when I was growing up. And no amount of today’s social engineering, through media or advertising, or “messages” will convince me that “full bodied” is more beautiful than “slender and slim”, while I consider that ALL people are “real”.

As to “sexual attraction” and forms/shapes/weight, it is strictly individual, and is to some degree, influenced by culture, time, and many other factors….. But! In western societies most men, while like “curves” still prefer slender elegant well formed bodies. And no amount of “messages” will immediately affect one’s “sexual desires”. Unless there is law commanding men to lend their bed to "affirmative action for big girls" (which i see the media is trying to do at times), most western men will go with the "model type" or "healthy slender type"... and there is nothing "progressive equalizers" can do about it....
 
berthesghost said:
What if we listen to what these women actually said? Both Jenny and Nancy stressed the need to control something because they felt they had lost control over their lives.

Gracie has been more quite, but none of the 3 to my knowledge have ever mentioned their coaches or blamed their "bullying".

That's not to say it isn't a factor. But it's not what they feel the need to bring up as a main point.

There's just something uncomfortable to me about taking Nancy's statement that the chaos Tonya caused in her life was the source, and somehow twisting that around to mean Evy Scotvold was bullying Tonya into a possible eating disorder. Although blaming Nancy and her team for the rotten things Tonya did to her is nothing new.
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We aren't saying Evy was bullying Tonya into an eating disorder. Evy was very critical of Tonya's weight and made so me not very nice comments about it.
 
Erin said:
I can't believe I am about to wade into this discussion, but by calling Tonya in that video "not thin", you are part of the problem.
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You are the problem.

You associate "not thin" with something negative.

You apparently think "thin" is a code word for good.

Your psyche might be messes up, but do not put your crap on me.

I think thick and muscular, not thin, is beautiful, healthy, and a sign developing one's potential.
 
McCallum Place and their work with athletes:
https://www.mccallumplace.com/the-victory-program.html

NCAA Sports Science Institute: Mind, Body and and Sport: Eating Disorders
http://www.ncaa.org/sport-science-institute/mind-body-and-sport-eating-disorders

It is in plain sight that figure skating and other sports like gymnastics, ski jumping, and diving for example, struggle with what the "perceived" body type is for their respective sports.
Athletic physiques are criticized openly on social media, discussion boards, YT, blogs and behind closed doors between coaches, officials and athletes, but what is not addressed as that attitudes need to change, not only by the general public that consumes these sports, but the support staff for the athletes, who need to address what it takes to properly fuel the athlete's bodies and minds so that they can indeed compete at the top of their game.
 
bardtoob said:
You are the problem.
You associate "not thin" with something negative.
You apparently think "thin" is a code word for good.
Your psyche might be messes up, but do not put your crap on me.
I think thick and muscular, not thin, is beautiful, healthy, and a sign developing one's potential.
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I agree with your reply to the particular post. But as far as “not thin” and “negative vs. positive”. Figure skating elements are also judged on “shapes/forms’ a skater creates. When one is “heavier/stockier”, usually (not always), one has less stretch and therefore creates a less attractive form..

Here is Tonya’s spiral..
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MdC5G7CDvbI/hqdefault.jpg

… and here is Nancy’s spiral (and I have no love for Nancy)…
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0c/8b/94/0c8b94e22a55326b3ace509be7a80191.jpg

and here is Caroline Zhang early https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2e/ab/21/2eab2174aac5da49cafd54c18a1f3244.jpg
… and now, with “some meat”
http://web.icenetwork.com/assets/images/1/3/2/107189132/cuts/Zhang_SP_taospbxj_wc7haqwk.jpg

Which spiral deserves better marks?
 
I don't know how much sense it makes to compare comments and judgments made on women's bodies to those made about men, considering how differently they've been judged and how many double standards are still prevalent in the West. Any claims implying male bodies and female bodies are tantamount in any discursive context seem untenable to me.

I have mixed feelings about the idea that all bodies are beautiful. I took an art history class a couple of years ago and we spent a few weeks looking at contemporary feminist and queer art that focuses on exposing the abjectness of the human body, and I think that perspective might (in some ways, at least) be more powerful than a celebratory one.

Of course some bodies are going to be more successful in figure skating than others, which is true about every sport. Also, some bodies that may not be the hegemonic ideal (a concept that should be questioned anyway) for a given sport will succeed, and that challenges norms in a way I think is powerful.

There is a collectively "messed up" attitude about female bodies (and probably male bodies as well, but that's tangential to my point here) in our culture, and I would hope that no one (or at least almost no one) posting in this thread finds that controversial. It's one thing to say that some people are more physically likely to succeed at skating or volleyball or Greco-Roman wrestling and another thing to dictate that one body type is generally better or worse than any other or to tell people that they should abandon interests (athletic or otherwise) because they'll never be the best in the world unless they significantly modify or harm their body.
 
essence_of_soy said:
To paraphrase a quote from Joan Ryan's book, one skater said that if she skated better at 105 pounds but her coach thought she looked better at 100 pounds, the coach wanted her to lose those five pounds.
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That was Nancy. I expect she'll go into more detail about this in her documentary.

On a personal level, I have gone through periods in my adult life where I was underweight. Usually all it takes is an illness. A few years ago, it was an abscessed tooth followed by two months of various oral surgeries and dental procedures that made eating difficult and unappealing. At NO time did anyone EVER tell me I looked better. No one came up to me and said, "Wow, I bet you're under 100 pounds now. You look great! I love the way your bones stick out and your clothes hang on you like a scarecrow." Instead, I would get old ladies trying to stuff me with food and people asking me if I was anorexic. I also feel horrible when I get that thin. I don't have enough energy to walk across the room, let alone skate.
 
bardtoob said:
The one that has the deepest spiraling edge, wobbles the least as the spiraling edge cuts into the ice as the skater glides, and has the most speed.

I'm old fashioned :D
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so why then bother "creating forms and shapes" while in a spiral?
 
Tinami Amori said:
so why then bother "creating forms and shapes" while in a spiral?
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I'm not certain why the spiral sequence was a required element. It's not now. Maybe it was something the ISU decided to include in the SP as another way of assessing skating skills after the elimination of figures. I do know that Team Michelle tried very hard to make Michelle's spiral spectacular in response to Team Nicole's efforts.

Historically, it was considered innovative that Dorothy Hamill integrated short spirals into her required serpentine step sequence in the short program.

BTW I did prefer Nancy's body position. Nancy always did include a spiral in her programs as a special feature because she did it well.

ETA:

I recall that when the IJS first became the official scoring system for ISU competitions Sonia Bianchetti criticized the ISU Technical Committee because they apparently did not know why a "spiral" was called a spiral. For some reason they used the term "Regular spiral" when meaning Arabesque spiral, Arabesque being the body position and spiraling edge being the movement. "Regular spiral" has about as much meaning as "Regular spin".
 
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Tinami Amori said:
and here is Caroline Zhang early https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2e/ab/21/2eab2174aac5da49cafd54c18a1f3244.jpg
… and now, with “some meat”
http://web.icenetwork.com/assets/images/1/3/2/107189132/cuts/Zhang_SP_taospbxj_wc7haqwk.jpg

Which spiral deserves better marks?
Click to expand...

It is hard to say based on the photos you posted, and it's necessary to see the spiral in motion.

I liked Zhang a lot, and liked her no less when her body matured. I thought her spiral was fine when she was mature.

bardtoob said:
The one that has the deepest spiraling edge, wobbles the least as the spiraling edge cuts into the ice as the skater glides, and has the most speed.

I'm old fashioned :D
Click to expand...

ITA agree, but wouldn't say the view is old-fashioned.

I don't think that having a bit more versus a bit less weight necessarily makes a spiral more beautiful, as it is form and glide which matter the most. Though I don't know the impact that more versus less weight has on a skater's capacity to execute a spiral.

Also, 99% of elite figure skaters are thin - even those who don't perfectly fit the ideal of skater thin. I say 99% because I recall seeing one elite skater ever who was what I'd call 'hefty'.
 
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Tinami Amori said:
….do we want to limit Ladies’ figure skating routines to only 3 double-jumps, to accommodate busty/butty Gedevanishvili…
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Elene_GEDEVANISHVILI_TEB2009.jpg
Click to expand...
Ah yes, I read her autobiography: One Skating As Two, with forward by Michelle Kwan : http://oi65.tinypic.com/axz8s1.jpg Seriously, there are legitimate concerns about how much additional weight can effect a skater's jumps, but they can be manipulated by this weird unhealthy obsession that puts pressure on female skaters.
 
So, is the double standard in skating..."only skaters with 'beautiful bodies' should apply to be elite athletes? Really??? That sickens me, but that seems to be the perception of what this sport has become :-(
 
mag said:
And here it is again. “Beautiful.” I am interested to know if anyone has ever heard someone say that all men are handsome?
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Since this is about my comment, I'll respond: Yes, I think all men are beautiful also.
As a health care professional, as well as an interested human being, I find the human body and spirit amazing, complex, and mind-bogglingly intricate; and the way all of our pieces come together to work fascinates me. Add to that the incredible drive, strength and resilience that most if not all humans have in their spirit, yes, I do find every one of us beautiful and amazing. Snark as you wish ;)
 
B.Cooper said:
So, is the double standard in skating..."only skaters with 'beautiful bodies' should apply to be elite athletes? Really??? That sickens me, but that seems to be the perception of what this sport has become :-(
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Midori Ito did win WC and Olympic silver. Bonaly won European 5 times. Debi Thomas did win WC and Olympic bronze. Liza Tuk did win everything except Olympic medal... I am not saying they're not beautiful. But they're not the traditional norm of beauty (no princess) and they still did well enough.
 
Meoima said:
Liza Tuk did win everything except Olympic medal... I am not saying they're not beautiful. But they're not the traditional norm of beauty (no princess) and they still did well enough.
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You're joking, right? There is no place on this planet that Liza is not drop-dead gorgeous, whatever your standards of beauty.

And yet many skating fans complained about her weight a lot, too...
 
Taso said:
I see what you are saying on some level, and his history of stomach issues, his parodying exhibiition on aerobics, his landings struggling moreso than anything the last few years makes me worry for him straight up. Male eating disorders are not talked about culturally almost at all and believe me they absolutely without any question exist, with many athletes. I get worried about Javi moreso than most other male skaters because of some of this evidence, and as a therapist who has worked with folks with many cross addictions there is something to be said when my fears are evoked - and I'm well aware of watching where that leads into projection.
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Javi suffered from food-poisoning at the 2017 Cup of China and it took a while for him (as well as for anyone..) to get back into condition. I remember that he has said he can eat anything without getting fat, that was the way I was until 40, LOL.

He looked a bit thinner before the 2017 Worlds, but I´m sure that was because he was so much behind in his training (because of his way too many distractions) and had to catch up. I expect to see the same at the Olympics.
 
misskarne said:
You're joking, right? There is no place on this planet that Liza is not drop-dead gorgeous, whatever your standards of beauty.

And yet many skating fans complained about her weight a lot, too...
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She is not the princess style that the norm tend to associate with figure skating. No one says she isn’t pretty.
And yes there are some places in this planet people prefer a different kind of beauty. And there is nothing wrong with that. It calls diversity.
 
Tinami Amori said:
Here is Tonya’s spiral..
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MdC5G7CDvbI/hqdefault.jpg

… and here is Nancy’s spiral (and I have no love for Nancy)…
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0c/8b/94/0c8b94e22a55326b3ace509be7a80191.jpg
Click to expand...
Oh please. Zhang is a terrible example because she had a back injury.

Bobek was hardly a stick figure: http://www.frogsonice.com/skateweb/pictures/misc/bobek.jpg

Tonya probably didn't work on spiral flexibility because it didn't really matter back then if you had a sky-high free leg.
 
vesperholly said:
Tonya probably didn't work on spiral flexibility because it didn't really matter back then if you had a sky-high free leg.
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But I thought Nancy’s crowd-popular, applause-getting spiral was one of the things that signaled the judges “unfair” preference for her over Tonya? As usually with TH, all of the excuses and accusations pile up and tend to contradict themselves.
 
mikey said:
Eating disorders are bad. Bullying people is bad. Bullying people into developing eating disorders is bad. But Evy Scotvold was a coach who was getting paid a lot of money to get his students as far as they could. Let's be honest- you need to be thin to do triple jumps consistently (and quads, too, by the looks of Javier Fernandez, who is almost a skeleton at this point). It isn't just about aesthetics when it comes to sport. Would we all still love elite skating as a sport if it prohibited triple and quad jumps?
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If that is true, how did Tonya Harding manage to be a better jumper than her thinner rivals? She was accused of being "out of shape" (euphemism for being fat) at 1994 US Nationals but it's hard to find a better triple lutz than hers at that competition.
 
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