What is the female athletic triad?

What is the female athletic triad?

Divya Kakaiya (Program Founder and Clinical Supervisor) gives expert video advice on: Why are athletes susceptible to anorexia?; What sports have more susceptibility to anorexia?; What is the female athletic triad? and more...

When we look at working with athletes with eating disorders, we've got three components in there that define the female athletic triad. We have disordered eating, the loss of their period, and osteoporosis. So those are the things we talk about when we look at the female athletic triad. Now, within our field in working with athletes and eating disorders, we actually are tending to use that phrase a lot less because it doesn't allow us to look at male athletes with eating disorders. So there's a whole piece of controversy that we have where when we talk about the female athletic triad, we're really looking at these components and so basically what we're talking about is the way in which the eating disorder affects these body systems. So when we talk about the female athletic triad, we are looking at these three very substantial events that are present in the life of an athlete.