Discussing Tuberidze's latest interview

[canbelto]

The no water thing seems to be a holdover from old country Soviet ideas of nutrition. You heard a lot about it in gymnastics back in the day with people wondering why Russian and Romanian coaches (and those in the US who fled those regimes) were so anti-water.

The no water thing comes from not understanding the difference between water weight loss/gain and fat weight loss/gain. It's easy to lose water weight. It's much harder to lose fat weight.

 

[bladesofgorey]

JFC, if she's sounding the alarm for a daily weight fluctuation of 1/2 a pound it's like an Eating Disorder factory not a skating factory she's got going there. Once young women start getting their periods their weight can bounce up and down by a couple pounds at least in between days (mine always did, and still does even now that I'm through menopause). This is insanity and yes it's psychological abuse resulting in self-inflicted physical abuse in children.

 

[MacMadame]

Ok that’s crazy. If at a bit more than 5’6” I weighed 103 pounds I would look and feel like Auschwitz. At 123 when I was ill I looked skeletal and I’m small-boned!

I'm 5' and last time I was measured, I had 88 pounds of muscle and at times I have had as much as 98 pounds. But their ideal weight is 81 pounds. It is crazy.

JFC, if she's sounding the alarm for a daily weight fluctuation of 1/2 a pound it's like an Eating Disorder factory not a skating factory she's got going there. Once young women start getting their periods their weight can bounce up and down by a couple pounds at least in between days (mine always did, and still does even now that I'm through menopause). This is insanity and yes it's psychological abuse resulting in self-inflicted physical abuse in children.

This is why the recommendation is to only weigh weekly. When you weigh weekly, you tend not to see those little fluctuations. Also, most people's weight bounces between a 2lb range. So, a 150 lb person could see 148 to 152 on the scale if they do daily weighing.

 

[marbri]

I’m just under 5’7” and about 118. I’m thin but not unhealthy looking, and typically wear a size 2.

Well that's because according to the first chart canbelto posted (which apparently is the more lenient chart) you are about 10 lbs overweight

 

[Vagabond]

IDK. I think based on what is being discussed, it sounds like ET is more mentally abusive than physically abusive. Some of the women like Trusova had the opportunity to train w/ other coaches but willingly went back to her. There is more than 1 example. Why? Do ET's skaters feel that they are abused?

All abuse is mental abuse. Here, however, Tutuberidze is compelling her students to follow unhealthy diets that effect their physical well-being. It is physical abuse. Regardless, some of the worst abuse never involves any physical contact whatsoever.

Many victims of abuse do not understand until years, even decades, afterwards that what they went through was abuse. Some never even reach this understanding. It is quite possible that at least some of Tutberidze's current or former skaters feel that they are or have been abused, but even if not a single one feels that way, the conduct she admits to in the interview and elsewhere constitutes abuse.

 

[canbelto]

Well that's because according to the first chart canbelto posted (which apparently is the more lenient chart) you are about 10 lbs overweight

And there are American dance bloggers who decry that in the US there aren't these weight requirements:

The fat truth about the skinny in ballet

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This guy has a huge following in the dance world.

 

[PRlady]

I’m just under 5’7” and about 118. I’m thin but not unhealthy looking, and typically wear a size 2.

I weighed that at age 26 or so. I think the reason I looked so bad at 123 when I was older, sick and thin is that, well, I was sick! But 103 is preposterous.

ETA: just read Haglund’s blog and all the comments. My, Misty has upset a lot of people. I don’t know ballet well enough to judge the arguments but there sure seems to be a lot of antipathy to her.

 

[canbelto]

I weighed that at age 26 or so. I think the reason I looked so bad at 123 when I was older, sick and thin is that, well, I was sick! But 103 is preposterous.

ETA: just read Haglund’s blog and all the comments. My, Misty has upset a lot of people. I don’t know ballet well enough to judge the arguments but there sure seems to be a lot of antipathy to her.

Haglund and his followers are very racist. Just a statement of fact. They hate Calvin Royal too and NYCB's India Bradley.

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[becca]

I read a translation with Eteri and I sort of understand the Alina situation a little better while I don’t think she should have discussed it.

She stated that Alina’s mom did not understand the training process didn’t want to do it. That some skaters can get in shape with five hours Alina needed twelve.

Says that it wasn’t working Alina wasn’t putting in the hours. And mom wasn’t understanding. She said she saw the family was spending all this money on keeping second apartment and she didn’t want them to do that so she kicked Alina out of the group.

However Alinas grandmother came to her and said that she is willing to guarantee Alinas training and that’s where the deal came. She said once Alina won the gold medal her mom came back and same issues with training returned.

Eteri praised the grandmother as the reason why Alina won gold. She also praised Julia’s mom.

She said That she jokes the best parent is the parent she doesn’t know because that means their is no issues with child’s training.

I think Eteri should not have given an interview discussing the Alina situation. But I think the parents deserve more of the blame for it they are the ones who agreed to the situation.

I don’t think it’s particularly wrong for a coach to say the parents aren’t helping the training situation so no I am not going to train this child and yes I think they should care to about wasting people’s money.

However I am sure this is a sensitive subject for Alina and her family and there is no need for eteri to discuss it

 

[Taso]

Ok that’s crazy. If at a bit more than 5’6” I weighed 103 pounds I would look and feel like Auschwitz. At 123 when I was ill I looked skeletal and I’m small-boned!

I know these numbers are insane. I am male and just a smidge under 5'11. My ideal weight on this chart is 139. I weighed that 3 years ago during an illness - I looked dead, and felt, like I was dead. And I am thin boned and long (bigger hips and thighs like a lot of skaters/bikers/thru hikers). It would have been completely impossible for me to lift another adult at that weight, even if she was like 88 pounds, I was so weak.

 

[muffinplus]

JFC, if she's sounding the alarm for a daily weight fluctuation of 1/2 a pound it's like an Eating Disorder factory not a skating factory she's got going there. Once young women start getting their periods their weight can bounce up and down by a couple pounds at least in between days (mine always did, and still does even now that I'm through menopause). This is insanity and yes it's psychological abuse resulting in self-inflicted physical abuse in children.

Some of you have a reading comprehension problem… which is clearly common when it comes to reading her interviews.

“а когда это 200-300 грамм, это ерунда” - this is what she said. Verbatim, when it’s 200-300 grams, it’s nothing/not a big deal. That’s what “ерунда” means.

 

[On My Own]

“а когда это 200-300 грамм, это ерунда” - this is what she said. Verbatim, when it’s 200-300 grams, it’s nothing/not a big deal. That’s what “ерунда” means.

The full quote, in English from the webpage linked, is this:

It’s advisable to weigh yourself every day, because it’s much easier to solve the problem at the initial stages than when it is already 2-3 kilograms and you really need to lose weight, when it’s 200-300 grams, it’s not that serious.

That does read like she's saying it's much easier to weigh yourself everyday and reduce 200-300 grams because it's not a big deal to lose this much weight, rather than when it's 2-3 kilograms, when it would be a big deal to lose it.

What is this full quote in Russian and what does it translate as?

 

[giselle23]

The real issue is the daily weigh-ins. That can be the source of eating disorders. In the book The Second Mark, it tells how Shen of Shen and Zhao was subjected to weigh-ins and once, when she was criticized for gaining too much weight, it triggered an eating disorder where she barely ate anything. The issue shouldn't be weight at all. It should be performance. Eteri is obviously more concerned with how her skaters look than how their weight affects their performance. The tie between weight and performance is not proven and in fact is disproven empirically by skaters who are not stick-thin yet can perform difficult elements.

 

[muffinplus]

I don’t see her saying clearly anywhere in this quote that you need to lose 200-300 grams if you gained this much in one day… her issue is not monitoring it for days and discovering you are weighing 2-3kg more. Which I’m not sure if it’s a big deal either but that’s not what we are arguing about.

 

[On My Own]

I don’t see her saying clearly anywhere in this quote that you need to lose 200-300 grams if you gained this much in one day… her issue is not monitoring it for days and discovering you are weighing 2-3kg more.

This is a more liberal interpretation of how it's been translated - which I can agree with. (ETA: Which is to say, I understand why they'd interpret that quote that way)

 

[BittyBug]

Good lord some of you people are truly willfully ignorant. Daily weighing is not healthy because it promotes an obsessive focus on weight that can induce an eating disorder. Don't believe me? Google it. But please just stop trying to excuse this practice because it is inexcusable.

 

[soogar]

IDK. I think based on what is being discussed, it sounds like ET is more mentally abusive than physically abusive. Some of the women like Trusova had the opportunity to train w/ other coaches but willingly went back to her. There is more than 1 example. Why? Do ET's skaters feel that they are abused? Do they have Stockholm Syndrome? I can't get a fix on all this to make a judgment.

I don't think Trusova willingly went back to her. She was lowballed by Russian Fed in her presentation scores. I think Plush was a great coach for her and Trusova always was a nervous competitor. She is still nervous under Eteri but the judges are not burying her.

 

[Hedwig]

I find her criticising Kostornaia for not competing with broken hand also staggering. Her argument- other skaters hide injuries as well.

She is probably right that there are skaters with even worse injuries that are competing. But it still shows an absolute disregard of her skater‘s health.

 

[soogar]

I find her criticising Kostornaia for not competing with broken hand also staggering. Her argument- other skaters hide injuries as well.

She is probably right that there are skaters with even worse injuries that are competing. But it still shows an absolute disregard of her skater‘s health.

Kostornaia was right not to compete. She would have been buried with Liza. At least she has time to heal and who knows what will happen if there is a change in the minimum age. It would give new life to older skaters with solid fundamentals.

 

[euterpe]

If there is a change in the minimum age, skaters who have been competing internationally as seniors but are under the new minimum age would be grandfathered in, as Tara Lipinski and Sarah Hughes were in the past.

 

[muffinplus]

Good lord some of you people are truly willfully ignorant. Daily weighing is not healthy because it promotes an obsessive focus on weight that can induce an eating disorder. Don't believe me? Google it. But please just stop trying to excuse this practice because it is inexcusable.

I googled it and here is what I came up with

To Weigh or Not to Weigh? Relation to Disordered Eating Attitudes and Behaviors Among Female Collegiate Athletes - PubMed

Female athletes have been identified as a subpopulation at heightened risk for disordered eating attitudes and behaviors, particularly due to weight pressures in their environment. Using a sample of 414 NCAA Division-I female collegiate athletes, we examined the relations of required team...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Using a sample of 414 NCAA Division-I female collegiate athletes, we examined the relations of required team weigh-ins or self-weighing on disordered eating attitudes and behaviors.

Through a series of multivariate analyses, we determined that team weighs were unrelated significantly to all outcome measures.


“Mandatory team-conducted weigh-ins appear to not be a salient pressure for female gymnasts and swimmer/divers, although the frequency of their self-weighing may represent a level of self-monitoring that is associated with greater endorsement of disordered eating attitudes and behaviors.”

just because something has resulted /can induce eating disorders does not mean it is. This study did not find a definitive link? What studies have found a definitive link?

 

[Primorskaya]

I checked myself out on the Vaganova chart and thought, that's weird, I'm bang on at 164cm and 50kg....until I realised I was looking at the men's chart I should be 43kg apparently. I've been close to that and it didn't look good. Tiny bum, haggard face. It beggars belief that they have the energy to dance for hours. Maybe because they're very young, they can take it. Anyway, not healthy.

 

[marbri]

I googled it and here is what I came up with

To Weigh or Not to Weigh? Relation to Disordered Eating Attitudes and Behaviors Among Female Collegiate Athletes - PubMed

Female athletes have been identified as a subpopulation at heightened risk for disordered eating attitudes and behaviors, particularly due to weight pressures in their environment. Using a sample of 414 NCAA Division-I female collegiate athletes, we examined the relations of required team...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Using a sample of 414 NCAA Division-I female collegiate athletes, we examined the relations of required team weigh-ins or self-weighing on disordered eating attitudes and behaviors.

Through a series of multivariate analyses, we determined that team weighs were unrelated significantly to all outcome measures.


“Mandatory team-conducted weigh-ins appear to not be a salient pressure for female gymnasts and swimmer/divers, although the frequency of their self-weighing may represent a level of self-monitoring that is associated with greater endorsement of disordered eating attitudes and behaviors.”

just because something has resulted /can induce eating disorders does not mean it is. This study did not find a definitive link? What studies have found a definitive link?

In between those bolded sections is this part:
Self-weighing, however, differentiated the athletes' scores on internalization, body satisfaction, dietary restraint, negative affect, and bulimic symptomatology; athletes who self-weighed three or more times a week (sometimes 1-2 times per week) reported significantly higher levels of pathology across all measures.

I mean we can dismiss this due to semantics because they aren't "self weighing" but they are being weighed daily and by Eteri's own words (giving her the benefit of the doubt as to interpretation) if they deviate more than 200-300 grams there is some action taken. So these girls train knowing they will have a daily weigh in and they must, essentially, not gain weight.

Not a study by any means but I know a club that hired an Eastern European coach. They implemented daily weigh-ins, girls lined up to be weighed in front of others, and it was very damaging to a lot of those girls. The coach was let go.

 

[tony]

Good lord some of you people are truly willfully ignorant. Daily weighing is not healthy because it promotes an obsessive focus on weight that can induce an eating disorder. Don't believe me? Google it. But please just stop trying to excuse this practice because it is inexcusable.

I'm not trying to be an intentional counterpoint here, but that's not completely true. There are nutritionists (I'm talking PhDs) that will say daily weighing is better. There are articles that one can find that say it's not a good idea. You're going to find whatever you personally want to be the truth on Google, so you can't really look at it that way as if one was the ultimate reason for eating disorders.

I know I'm going to be told I have no horse in this race as I'm not female, but LGBT in general have a huge well-documented body image problem. As someone who can easily (and I mean within a month or 45 days) go from go from 198 to 170 pounds, I tend to weigh myself at the same time every morning and keep a log of everything when I'm serious about getting back into really good shape. I've never, ever come anywhere close to starving myself, and I actually eat 'more' small meals when I cut calories. If one was to get weighed once a week and noticed they'd put on 3 or 4 pounds, don't you think there would be a more desperate effort to lose that weight quickly? These younger people aren't as knowledgable in nutrition but a sudden big gain that was only tracked once a week would, IMO, make things a lot more dangerous if they aren't taught the right thing.

 

[muffinplus]

In between those bolded sections is this part:
Self-weighing, however, differentiated the athletes' scores on internalization, body satisfaction, dietary restraint, negative affect, and bulimic symptomatology; athletes who self-weighed three or more times a week (sometimes 1-2 times per week) reported significantly higher levels of pathology across all measures.

I mean we can dismiss this due to semantics because they aren't "self weighing" but they are being weighed daily and by Eteri's own words (giving her the benefit of the doubt as to interpretation) if they deviate more than 200-300 grams there is some action taken. So these girls train knowing they will have a daily weigh in and they must, essentially, not gain weight.

Not a study by any means but I know a club that hired an Eastern European coach. They implemented daily weigh-ins, girls lined up to be weighed in front of others, and it was very damaging to a lot of those girls. The coach was let go.

this is self weighing. Not team weigh ins. Not semantics… They differentiated between the 2 if you read the abstract and even then it is a “may”. This is not a study with a conclusive decisive statement about weigh ins.

 

[marbri]

Got it. Nothing to see here folks.

 

[muffinplus]

Got it. Nothing to see here folks.

No but seriously. This study was not conclusive as to the question of weigh ins leading to eating disorders?. I'm not denying that it may contribute (even though they referred to self weigh in). But Why act like it came up with a definitive answer to this question or a factual and definitive conclusion?

 

[bladesofgorey]

Tony this is not the same thing at all and you can't be actually arguing this in good faith. There are studies that if someone has suffered from an eating disorder in the past, and they have been in the recovery process for a long time, and are working under professional guidance in the recovery process, then once a day (and only once a day) weigh-ins once they have reached their healthy target weight established by a medical team may help them feel more in control and less apt to starve or binge. That is not the same thing as daily pressure to maintain a weight well below what's healthy for their bodies.

Muffuinplus GTFO with this. Agnostic team weigh-ins if the coaches aren't pushing athletes to cut weight down to unhealthy levels for their natural weight may not trigger disordered eating, but if a coach is monitoring every increase in weight and favor is doled out based on those numbers then OF COURSE athletes will start monitoring themselves daily as well and trying make the number on the scale go down on a daily basis. There's going to be a huge amount of anxiety for them around trying to control exact numbers on a scale daily.

As far as these weight numbers for Russian ballerinas, most of the people I know who hit those numbers did so right before their bodies and brains gave out and they were hospitalized. IMO it's dangerous to be posting those charts on a public forum like this where I'm sure a lot of young athletes read but what are you gonna do. I just don't want that to go unnoted.

 

[Impromptu]

I googled it and here is what I came up with

To Weigh or Not to Weigh? Relation to Disordered Eating Attitudes and Behaviors Among Female Collegiate Athletes - PubMed

Female athletes have been identified as a subpopulation at heightened risk for disordered eating attitudes and behaviors, particularly due to weight pressures in their environment. Using a sample of 414 NCAA Division-I female collegiate athletes, we examined the relations of required team...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Using a sample of 414 NCAA Division-I female collegiate athletes, we examined the relations of required team weigh-ins or self-weighing on disordered eating attitudes and behaviors.

Through a series of multivariate analyses, we determined that team weighs were unrelated significantly to all outcome measures.

I downloaded the article and read the entire article (rather than just the abstract). One issue I have with the study is that participants were not asked how often the team weigh-ins were. Were they daily? Weekly?

Weigh-in Status. We determined the status of team weigh-ins through the question, “Does your team conduct regular ‘weigh-ins’ (i.e., YES or NO).” We assessed the status of self-weighing through the question “On average, how many times do you weigh yourself per week?”
(Athletes provided a number).

This is what the article had to say about the frequency of weighing:

Self-weighing, particularly 3 or more times per
week, was related to more dietary restraint and higher
levels of bulimic symptoms. Restricting caloric intake
and purging (e.g., excessive exercising, vomiting) are
behavioral means through which athletes may try to
lose weight and bring their bodies closer to their desired
weight. Self-weighing provides immediate verification of
success or failure, and orients female athletes toward their
bodies and reminds them of their actual weight. The more
constant the reminder that their weight is discrepant from
their ideal, the stronger their motivation to calorically
restrict or purge in hopes of eventually changing the numbers
on the scale. Regardless of the weight outcome, the
athletes’ self-weighing behaviors are reinforced because
the scale provides them with self-evaluative information.

Were the team weigh-ins more or less often than three times a week? The study does not specify. Since they seem critical of athletes who self-weigh more than three times a week, it might be possible that the team weigh ins were less often than that. It seems that's a pretty important variable that they neglected to collect.

“Mandatory team-conducted weigh-ins appear to not be a salient pressure for female gymnasts and swimmer/divers, although the frequency of their self-weighing may represent a level of self-monitoring that is associated with greater endorsement of disordered eating attitudes and behaviors.”

just because something has resulted /can induce eating disorders does not mean it is. This study did not find a definitive link? What studies have found a definitive link?

Perhaps in one of the below citations?

Greenleaf, C.A., Petrie, T.A., Carter, J., & Reel, J.J. (2009).
Female collegiate athletes: Prevalence of eating disorders
and disordered eating behaviors. Journal of American
College Health, 57, 489–495. PubMed doi:10.3200/
JACH.57.5.489-496

Kerr, G., Berman, E., & De Souza, M.J. (2006). Disordered
eating in women’s gymnastics: Perspectives of athletes,
coaches, parents, and judges. Journal of Applied Sport
Psychology, 18, 28–43. doi:10.1080/10413200500471301

Martinsen, M., & Sundgot-Borgen, J. (2013). Higher
prevalence of eating disorders among adolescent elite
athletes than controls. Medicine and Science in Sports
and Exercise, 45(6), 1188–1197. PubMed doi:10.1249/
MSS.0b013e318281a939

Petrie, T.A., & Greenleaf, C.A. (2012a). Eating disorders in
sport. In Murphy, S. M. (Ed), The Oxford Handbook of
Sport and Performance Psychology (635-659). New York,
NY, USA: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/
doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199731763.013.0034

Reel, J. J. & Gill, D. L. (2001). Slim enough to swim? Weight
pressures for competitive swimmers and coaching implications.
The Sport Journal, 4.

Reel, J. J., Petrie, T. A., SooHoo, S., & Anderson, C. M. (2013).
Weight pressures in sport: Examining the factor structure
and incremental validity of the weight pressures in sport
– Females. Eating Behaviors, 14, 137–144. PubMed
doi:10.1016/j.eatbeh.2013.01.003

Sundgot-Borgen, J., & Torstveit, M.K. (2004). Prevalence of
eating disorders in elite athletes is higher than in the general
population. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 14,
25–32. PubMed doi:10.1097/00042752-200401000-00005

 

[marbri]

No but seriously. This study was not conclusive as to the question of weigh ins leading to eating disorders?. I'm not denying that it may contribute (even though they referred to self weigh in). But Why act like it came up with a definitive answer to this question or a factual and definitive conclusion?

I wasn't aware I did that....