Ep. 89: Disordered Eating in Young Athletes with Georgie Buckley

Woman with long brown hair and glasses smiles for the camera. She is wearing a white shirt with blue, yellow and orange flowers on it.

Anna M. chats with Dr. Georgie Buckley, a consultant, dietitian and a postdoctoral researcher who currently works as an eating disorder and body image consultant. Georgie is also a queer, neurodivergent woman, and a trauma survivor with a history of an eating disorder.

They discuss:

  • The nature of disordered eating and body image issues are among pre-teen, teen and collegiate athletes.
  • The things that need to happen not just to raise more awareness, but shake things up so prevention becomes a core tenet of all youth and school sports programs.
  • How youth sports has evolved into a system where kids tend to be pushed to specialize earlier than in previous decades, and the impact this can have on a young athlete’s mental and physical health.
  • Ways for a parent or caregiver to handle a situation where a pre-teen or teenager expresses anxiety about their body, their weight, or their food intake.

Links:

About Georgie Buckley: I have a Bachelor of Science, a Master of Nutrition, a Master of Dietetic Practice and a PhD in psychology. I.e. I’m a very proud education lover who spent many many years in Universities and can contextualize the experiences we have through academic literature…not to mention critique the massive gaps research can offer the most marginalized of us. My PhD explored disordered eating in current and former athletes, whilst critiquing the systems and cultures that cause and maintain disruptions to our food and body relationship.

I have worked in and alongside prestigious international universities, major sporting organizations and inclusive clinical eating disorder settings. My favorite places to work are the ones that value the individual and their experiences, ones that understand how inequity happens, and ones that value an individual for who they are at their core – their chaos and messiness included. This is what I bring to my consulting work.

For me, I am so lucky and grateful to have recovered from my own eating disorder and body image concern experiences. I have also learnt to accept my own brain and body and appreciate nothing more than joyful experiences with food and gentle movement. I competed at a top national level in athletics for over 10 years and will always have a special interest in protecting those who are vulnerable and marginalized in sporting environments.