On Body Image Issues

Alissa Czisny

I've been putting off writing this post because I'm not entirely sure I'm qualified to write about weight issues. I'm still dealing with body image issues myself. As a figure skater, we feel a lot of pressure to be that size two or less, stick legged athlete. I most certainly am not. For one, I am a size 6 and I have muscular legs which I occasionally whine about. I have hips, I am a girl after all, and I'm 5'6 which I complained about for the longest time. I have fully come to terms with my height now that I have stopped growing. I have also realized that not all competitive figure skaters are the size of an olympic gymnast. In fact, skaters with long legs like Alissa Czisny are sometimes much more beautiful to watch.  Just make sure that those "gazelle" legs, as one of my coaches refers to them, are not bent.


So as a 5'6", muscular skater with hips and boobs and thighs I sometimes feel like I have the wrong body for the sport. Between my freshman year of high school, which I entered at age 13, and my senior year of high school which I left at age 17, my body has changed dramatically. I went from one of those little stick figures to an actual human being. This is a transition I still haven't come to terms with. I feel betrayed by my body and by myself. Sometimes I think if I didn't eat as much through high school that I would still be a size 2.

Junior Ladies Champion Polina Edmunds

Skating is different from other sports in that you are being judged and everything is subjective. In hockey you either score a goal or you don't. In football you either make a touch down or you don't. In running you either cross the finish line or you don't. Sometimes the staff has to look really really close, but the placements are still objective. In a subjective sport like figure skating or gymnastics, every little detail about your appearance seems to count. Is your dress to small? Is your dress ugly? Does it go with the music? Is your hair a mess? Does your makeup make you look like the Joker? Are your skates white? And finally...what about your weight? Are you fat? Skinny? I always felt that if only I had a more glamorous dress, if only I could drop a few pounds, that  I too could stand on the top of the podium.

The truth is, none of those things will make a dramatic difference. The physical appearance aspect might separate placements 2 from 3 or 1 from 2 but it will never take a skater at the bottom of the results sheet and shoot them up to the top or vice versa. The only thing that should really matter in skating isn't the politics or occasionally wacky judging, it's how you skate that counts. If you feel that you are at a disadvantage for whatever the reason, the solution is to work harder. You will feel better if you had to earn the medal around your neck.

There are some skaters, like Caroline Zhang who have undergone this transition at around the same time as I have. Many of you might remember this very young national medalist from 2008 when she began to appear everywhere. Suddenly she fell of the national stage but she has made a comeback! Low and behold, she no longer looks like a 12 year old girl. Why is it that this normal, natural transition is so shunned in figure skating?

That said, I still look in the mirror every day and wish that I had my 13 year old body back. My point in making this post was not to sit here and whine about my own issues. It was to point out, to myself and to you, that if you want something, you have to work to get it. If that something is out of your reach, you have to work harder in other areas to compensate for it. When I was younger and Oprah was on television she would often have overweight individuals on the show where they would cry about their weight. I used watch them sob and say, as thought they could hear, "Tears don't burn calories!" In hindsight, I realize how insensitive my comment was. But yet at the same time, nothing is stopping you, or me, or them from greatness besides ourselves. It's time to stop standing in our own way and to get out there and fight for what we want out of life. Don't let the myths about skating tell you that you are not good enough.

Sorry if that was too preachy for you!  Saturday's post will be a Product Review so stick around!

Best of Luck and lots of love to my new readers!!