At my old H/J barn there were 2 girls who clearly suffered from disordered eating. One is on the way to recovery but the other one either cannot or will not gain the weight.
Thank you everyone for your bravery. Speaking out and bringing these issues out of the darkness of shame is so important.
I’ve battled an eating disorder all my life, but looking at me, no one would ever know. Just want to echo everyone’s reminders that there are LOTS of mentally healthy people who are VERY small, and lots of mentally unhealthy people who look completely normal.
The silver lining, for me at least, is the horses. They’re pretty observant, powerful, empathetic creatures, and one of the reasons I love them so much is that they see past the bull sh** the world throws our way and just sees us for who we are and how we treat them. Having a horse gaze at me with his big trusting eyes has always brought me such healing!
Furthermore, I will say that the 45 minutes a day I spend riding are the only ones where I ever get a moment’s peace from thinking about food or my body and what’s wrong with it. My brain is a dark chaotic circus of overanalysis about food, and the riding is the bright spot where all of that gets put on pause. What a relief!
Thankfully, no one in my riding life has ever fueled the ED fire, which has kept my horse life pretty untarnished in that way. BUT, I’m lucky to be tall and a somewhat average weight (depending on the severity of binging currently happening). It infuriates me that girls that just want to ride and do well with their horse are being told they can’t because of their body, or that their body needs to change in order to win ribbons. I’m sorry, I thought this was a horse show, not America’s Next Top Model.
Keep fighting, everyone! You’re all so brave! Sorry for all the feels 
Regardless of whether or not everyone got in the video, thank you for opening up this conversation!
Hi there, did you complete your project? I’d be interested to hear the results. My daughter sufferers from a genetic eating disorders and I notice many others who have similar and woukw be keen to have materials raising awareness for our local pony club.
I think one of the most telltale signs amongst juniors and the pressure to be thin is to look at some of the riders who have won major equitation championships and how their bodies have changed in the years immediately following the conclusion of their junior years. Some of this could be contributed to having young metabolisms, but usually the weight gain to a weight that looks healthier is almost immediate for them at the ages of 18/19/20. Which means they were likely functioning in a constant calorie deficit in their junior careers.
Examples I can think of are Lillie Keenan, still a very thin person, but not the waif she was when she won Maclay finals. Tori Colvin, still very thin, but not the stick she was in her final junior year. Both incredible riders but I’m sure both felt immense pressure to be thin to be at the top.
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If you look back, the OP posted a link to her video back in 2016, don’t know if it is still up or not.
There was also a post from someone who was doing counselling in eating disorders for athletes. You might want to PM them if they are still active on this board!
Is this, too, a great deal about the judging? Are judges not as fair with riders at healthier weights?
Body shape is a fashion just as much as clothing styles. Quite a few decades ago, girls this slim would not have been considered attractive at all. Is this body shape really about riding skill, or about fashion? I find it hard to believe that it is making a horse more rideable.
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I want to point out this isn’t simply a female issue either. I am a male and when I started at my HJ barn my trainer also male told me that I wouldn’t pin as well until I lost a large portion of weight. Given I did need to loose weight I was 200 pounds at the time and obese. Also I lost the weight simply by riding everything that he offered me. (135 now) I never felt that he had an issue with my size personally, he was just laying the facts on me. To a certain extent I think he’s right, from an image standpoint but also possibly as a biological one. From the image standpoint yes a slim, graceful, talented rider is the utmost of what people think of when they think of a gifted rider. Not a whole lot we can do to change that. From a biological standpoint you cant deny your horse will preform better with less weight on their back. Would you rather jump with 50 pounds or your back or 80 pounds?
So do I think we should shame people for their image, no of course not. But it is a slippery slope because we need to keep the health and comfort of the horse in mind. Simple equation however size the horse to the rider. If the person is large then they need a large horse.
There is for sure many (mostly females) who obsess over their size. This I think is dangerous and I have several friends that struggle with eating disorders. Most of my female friends buy their breeches several sizes too small to look smaller. To the point where many of my friends white show pants are stretched so tight they are nearly see through. This obsession with small size needs to stop, but that doesn’t mean we need to adopt the 'health at any size" fallacy.
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George H. Morris himself once told me, “You can never be too thin, or too rich.” He wasn’t being a dick about it, but he clearly wanted to let me know that this wasn’t a risk I was running. Don’t worry George, I’m still neither!
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I believe it was a “would be” queen that said “You can never be too rich or too thin” but it was not a quote that originated with G.M. though I’m not at all surprised that he would use it.
I had a very intense eating disorder. The lowest I got was 80 pounds at 5’4. Equestrian communities can definitely make it worse.
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Very true! When I worked at j crew frequently women would announce that 0 wasn’t a real size and it very much is. Women come in all sizes.
“Most of my female friends buy their breeches several sizes too small to look smaller. To the point where many of my friends white show pants are stretched so tight they are nearly see through. " fallacy”
Am I terrible person for laughing at this part? I understand the seriousness of this topic and your point, this line just made me snort a little…
I’m not from the states but I thought I’d share my two cents.
As a teenager I had a lot of health problem and spent a lot of time in hospital and a wheelchair which stopped my riding career for four years. Due to tons of medication and a lack of activity my weight fluctuated a lot. When I got back into riding a few people commented on my weight and so I began to gym alongside what was already an extremely healthy diet and the weight dropped off pretty easily, the more weight I lost the more people noticed and complimented me. People would say stuff like ‘You’re so lucky you got sick because you lost all that weight’. I began to get a bit obsessive about exercising but never considered it unhealthy.
When I was 18 I took a gap year (for my health) and changed trainers. I was gyming regularly and eating healthy and apart from a few setbacks with my health was generally in good shape. (I was probably a size 2) My new trainer would go on and on constantly about what great shape I was in and was always on some new fad diet herself, I was a working student and would start at 5am and have ridden 7/8 horses before lunch with no break to eat. As people were constantly complimenting me I was exercising more and more and eating less and less. I’m 5’9’ and weighed 50 kgs. I was living on 15 + coffees a day with very little food. After I had finished at the barn I would go to the gym and do 2 classes and a workout on my own. I was frail, constantly sick, in and out of hospital and perpetually exhausted and yet people kept complimenting me on my body.
After a family holiday in which I ate the first junk food in years and was forced to rest and recover, I then had a DVT which put me out of action for a while and had an emotional stress that left me comfort eating an not exercising. I met my boyfriend who is an amazing cook and started university and began to slow down on exercising and having a more balanced life. I was eating whatever I wanted and my weight began to balloon. After about 6 months of minimal exercise and too much junk food I ballooned to a size 6/8. People now began to comment on how fat I’d got. My friends and especially my trainer would make constant comments. I began trying to lose weight, trying everything and so it began, fad diets and up and down weight with went on for another six months. Finally the middle of last year my trainer had two working students visit her from Holland. One was the same size as me (a 4/6) and one was a 6/8 but was a beauty queen. For the 3 months they were at the barn I was constantly compared by my trainer to them. With throw away comments about how beautiful they were compared to me, how thin they were/ how good they looked on a horse and how out of shape I was. It was a killer and was the last little trigger that started me on binging and purging (looking back I had been binging and obsessively exercising for a while). I was gyming/ running a minimum of 4 times a week but the negative comments kept coming. I started taking diet pills secretly and my weight was constantly up and down. Finally, I left the barn and things improved but after a training trip to Holland and some comments there I was at an all time low and my boyfriend caught me purging one night. Thanks to him and my parents I was put into therapy and faced my eating disorder and the tons of other issues that came from the years of my trainer commenting on my weight (5 years to be exact).
Looking back i can recognize that my trainer was projecting her own insecurities onto me and that I have had unhealthy habits for years since I was in my teens. But the riding industry without a doubt had a massive effect on my body image. I still think my thighs are huge and hate photos of me in white breeches. I have almost no images of myself that are off a horse but I’m trying to improve my mindset and keep my passion for fitness alive while controlling my urge to obsessively exercise and purge. It’s a process, but I’m proud to say I haven’t binged and purged in 3 months and have a healthy body fat percentage and muscle mass. The damage I have done to my body is now showing up in infertility and hormonal problems.
When I was binging and purging and was diagnosed with bulimia and obsessive exercise disorder I was technically a healthy BMI and had a normal fat percentage but I was purging 5-6 times a day. I knew it was unhealthy and logically I knew what it was doing to my body but I couldn’t control it or stop myself. I was lucky that my boyfriend caught me before I ended up hospitalized but it was a DISORDER. I am now in control of my weight and more mentally in control and it is a whole different story to having an eating disorder. Living a healthy lifestyle where you actively control your weight is not the same thing. Shaming women who watch their weight is just as bad as fat shaming.
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^^^^ flagged.
Some judges clearly mark down if one doesn’t have “the look.” They consider it detrimental to “the picture.” I was at a very prestigious AA show recently and saw horses that win the hacks everywhere else not even make the cut off if their riders were thicker. I think if you want to be competitive, you definitely get pressure which could lead to a disorder. Luckily for me, I never had enough talent for anyone to care -LOL!
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