2nd PLN: Female athlete triad

link to article: Sports and Women Athletes: The Female Athlete Triad -- familydoctor.org

I was reading this article while doing research on eating disorders for my position paper and it changed my thinking about my friend's anorexia. The female athlete triad is a disorder that affects one's eating habits, a girls periods, and the strength of one's bones. This is exactly what happened to my friend. The article also tells the risk factors for the female athlete triad and everyone on my swimming team has these risk factors (my friend that is anorexic is on my swim team). The signs of a potential problem for one of us was there but the coaches ignored them and continue to this day with the mindset that winning is more important than anything else. We could have prevented anything like this from happening by making swimming about doing our best and having fun not about winning at all costs. And my poor friend had to pay the price for our carelessness. She will always have the effects of her eating disorder such as osteoporosis in her back. She may never be able to be the same person she was before; she will always have to eat much more than a normal person and always have to have a lot of calcium to help her bones. It's a shame that nobody payed attention to the signs. Before I read this article I wondered how she got her eating disorder and why it was her not any other person. It's all very clear now; my whole team is at a big risk for the female athlete triad, she was just the poor girl who actually got it.