When Discipline Goes Too Far: The Hidden Line Between Performance and Disordered Eating

Athletes are under unique pressures that demand more: more effort, more discipline, more consistency. Keep climbing to the top. Get faster, be stronger, be leaner, and ultimately, be better. For athletes, sticking to a plan, pushing through discomfort, and staying on track with one’s goals is not only normal but encouraged and praised. These pressures to be the best and stay disciplined can come from many directions: coaches, parents, teammates, or even from within oneself.

While these people and pressures can drive growth and performance, they can also push athletes toward maladaptive strategies that they believe will help them achieve their goals. For some, this shows up in the form of disordered eating behaviors as a way to gain a “competitive edge”. Research highlights just how common these behaviors can be:

• In a large-scale study of 3,509 competitive athletes, 74% reported binge eating behaviors, 26% reported self-induced vomiting, and 50% reported fasting (Borowiec et al., 2023).

• Similarly, among 846 female athletes across 67 sports, 25% reported restrictive eating and 18% met criteria for eating disorders (Borowiec et al., 2023).

Despite how prevalent these behaviors are, they often go unnoticed, especially in high-performing environments.

One of the biggest challenges in recognizing disordered eating in athletes is that many of these behaviors don’t initially raise any concern. In fact, they are often encouraged and praised as “what it takes to be an elite athlete”. Tracking every meal, avoiding certain foods, maintaining extreme exercise schedules, and following a highly structured eating routine can all appear to be signs of commitment and discipline.

To an extent, this structure can support performance.

The problem is when these lines become blurred.

For many athletes, the pressure to perform becomes intertwined with the belief that their body size or composition is directly tied to success. The idea that the leaner the body, the faster, the quicker, the more competitive an athlete will be. Over time, this belief can shift from a performance strategy to a rigid standard, where the athlete’s self-worth and success become dependent on maintaining a certain body.

In today’s landscape, this pressure is amplified even further. With the rise of NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) opportunities, athletes are not only performing in their sport but also, in many ways, performing an image. The expectation to look a certain way, lean, aesthetic, “marketable”, adds another layer of pressure, reinforcing the idea that body shape is tied not just to performance, but to opportunity and value.

What may start as a goal to “lean out” for performance or appearance can shift into rigid restriction, fear of weight gain, or compensatory behaviors like overtraining or purging. These behaviors can still look like dedication from the outside and are often overlooked or even reinforced.

So how can athletes and others recognize when their behaviors support performance, rather than work against it?

• Check flexibility

• Can eating be adjusted when schedules change or “life happens”, or does that create stress?

• Notice reactions to food

  • Do “off-plan” foods lead to guilt or the urge to compensate?

• Pay attention to mental space

  • How much time is spent thinking about food, body image, or “rules”?

• Consider the “why.”

  • Are choices supporting performance and recovery, or driven by fear of weight gain or not looking a certain way?

• Rethink discipline

  • Discipline isn’t just pushing harder or eating less; it also includes fueling adequately, allowing flexibility, and responding to the body’s needs.

The goal isn’t just to perform at one’s best; it’s to sustain that performance without sacrificing health in the process.

Reference: Borowiec, J., Banio-Krajnik, A., Malchrowicz-Mośko, E., & Kantanista, A. (2023). Eating disorder risk in adolescent and adult female athletes: the role of body satisfaction, sport type, BMI, level of competition, and training background. BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation, 15(1), 91. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13102-023-00683-7