This means that your own body is then regulated via feedback from outside. For example, via judges and trainers, but also platforms such as social media.
Why do trainers still make such statements? Kim Bui can only make assumptions, but she believes: “Sometimes the coaches may not know any different because they themselves have not been shown otherwise. They also get pressure from the associations and have to deliver success. So they pass the pressure on to the athletes.”
This is also problematic because many female athletes have been practicing their sport since they were young. They have been doing gymnastics since childhood and are therefore used to a system of pressure and observation. The German Gymnastics Federation has over five million members, 66 percent of whom are female. When the athletes are still young, they trust what the trainers say. The environment strongly influences behavior.
According to Beckmann, the coaches and officials have an “enormous influence” and feedback is “often not questioned but rather internalized straight away.” In the German Gymnastics Association, 59 percent of the total members are children. Of these, in absolute numbers, more than a million are female.
Children in particular are susceptible to “self-worth and identity being defined very early and too strongly by performance or body,” says Beckmann. The sport then takes up so much space that the athletes only identify themselves with the success associated with it.
According to Beckmann, two aspects play a key role in counteracting this: Positive thinking, based on the fact that you enjoy sport and that the muscles you train are healthy. In addition, the realization “that the body is a resource and a tool”. So don’t judge what you look like, but rather see what your own body can do. Sport must also be seen as a whole. “So not just physically, but also psychologically,” Beckmann continued.
Kim Bui, who is not only committed to gymnastics but also to healthy sport in general, agrees with this. As part of the IOC Athletes Commission, she is also committed to raising awareness of how hard sport can be and that it challenges not only the body but also the mind. However, she emphasizes: “There must also be help in this regard. We train the body because it has to be trimmed for high performance in order to meet the requirements of the respective sport, but the mind also has to be trained.”