Soccer Fitness: How To Prevent Eating Disorders

Coaches need to seriously look into eating disorder in soccer fitness. Here are some of the tips that can prove valuable in preventing eating disorders in your champion players.

• Recognize The Signs And Symptoms Of Eating Disorders

An expert coach knows that when the players are facing eating disorders, they often try to hide their symptoms to avoid calling attention to them. Therefore, you must be capable enough to instruct coaches and trainers to recognize the signs and symptoms of eating disorders and understand their role in helping to prevent them.

• Providing Accurate Information

Providing accurate information to the players regarding weight, weight loss, body composition, nutrition and sports performance is very important and every coach should learn to do that with perfection. This will not only reduce misinformation but doing so will also challenge practices that are unhealthy and even counterproductive. Again, it is also important for the coaches to be aware of local professionals who will help educate the players.

• Emphasize The Health Risks

Another important thing in this regard is that the coaches must learn to emphasize the health risks associated with low weight, especially for female players with menstrual irregularities or Amenorrhea . If you find any such case, you should refer the player for medical assessment.

• Revering To A Sports Psychologist

If a player is chronically dieting or he exhibits mildly abnormal eating, it is always prudent for the coaches to refer to a sports psychologist or other therapist skilled at treating eating disorders. The likelihood of successful treatment increases if the problem is detected at an early stage. On the other hand, if the problem is left untreated, it may eventually progress to an eating disorder.

• Focus On Other Areas

Most coaches do the mistake that emphasize weight by weighing athletes and by maximizing comments about weight. This is not good. Instead, the coaches should focus on other areas in which players have more control in order to improve performance, such as focus on strength and physical conditioning.

Preventing Eating Disorders is an important element in soccer fitness and no coach should overlook this issue.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Andre Botelho is a recognized authority on the subject of soccer fitness. His web site, Coaching Youth Soccer Training Drills: www.SoccerDrillsTips.com, provides a wealth of informative soccer articles, resources and tips for soccer coaches, parents and players.