Emma Pooley is a retired professional cyclist who was a pillar in her sport. Although she retired about a decade ago, she discusses how the effects of under-fueling in her training created a “weird relationship” for her with food, and it’s something she still feels the impact of.
Emma Pooley has been retired from professional cycling for about a decade now. In a recent interview with CNN Sports, Pooley discussed how she believes that the impact of under-fueling in her training cultivated a “weird” relationship with food that is still with her.
She discussed how the effects are “permanent” on her, as she’s still dealing with a bone density that is “10 to 20 years older than [she] actually” is. The British former cyclist has been unraveling a mentality that is complex and “contradictory” when it comes to eating. She recently released her own cookbook, however, she makes it clear that her athletic career caused her to develop unhealthy habits.
“I sort of thought I shouldn’t eat as much, and it took a while to get through that and to realize that, actually, the more I ate, the faster I was, and I didn’t put on weight because I was training lots,” Pooley told the publication.
Pooley explained that despite her intense training, she always carried the belief that she was fat. She would restrict her diet, avoid some foods, and refuse to listen to what her body wanted.
She says those habits were created after being surrounded by “really, really skinny people,” and being influenced by the idea that being lighter and weighing less makes you a faster and better cyclist.
What’s referred to as “under-fueling” in the realm of professional athletes, which Pooley says can be greatly dangerous and long-lasting.
“With women, if you’re underweight for a long time, you end up messing your hormones around and (can develop) low bone density. My bone density is lower than it should be, and I keep getting stress fractures,” she said.
“I run lots now – that’s my main sport and I still race competitively. In the last seven years, I’ve had a stress fracture in my femur and a stress fracture in my foot. I don’t know if they’re directly caused by years of under-fueling, but it certainly wouldn’t have helped.”
Poor bone health and density falls under the spectrum of Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs), which occurs when an athlete has overtrained and/or under-eaten for a prolonged period of time in an attempt to improve their performance.
Medical experts and reports state that REDs can damage an athlete’s metabolism, immune system, cardiovascular health, menstrual cycle, mental health, and their overall performance in their sport. While the condition exists among a wide variety of sports, the condition has been rising in cycling in recent years, specifically under-eating.
In a report published by MDPI in 2022, it was found that competitive cycling has a “high prevalence of disordered eating and/or eating disorders.” Several athletes in the sport have become outspoken about their difficult relationships with food.
In a Cycling Weekly interview, Jan Tratnik stated that he had an overwhelming desire to lose weight. This led him to developing bulimia, where he would binge-eat large amounts of food and purge it all to avoid gaining weight. “I couldn’t handle being starving, so I cracked and ate too much. Being afraid to gain weight, it was a circle I couldn’t escape from.”
Cédrine Kerbaol, a professional cyclist and nutritionist, said during this year’s Tour de France Femmes that cyclists are facing a “dangerous time” when it comes to their relationship with eating and losing weight.
“In recent years, it has been very fashionable to count every gram on our plates. We must not fall into a form of dehumanization and infantilization,” she said.
Pooley won an Olympic silver medal in 2008 and was crowned world time trial champion in 2010. She continued to explain to CNN Sports that she experienced an “unscientific kind of bullying” when it came to food from team officials.
“What I did experience was teams with directors who watched what you ate, so with no kind of measure and no science behind it, they just kind of watched you balefully and got cross with you if you ate the wrong thing.
“Back when I was racing, certainly from some team directors, they seemed to think that enjoying food was in some way wrong because food is just a tool. It’s just fuel, and you shouldn’t enjoy it. If you enjoy food, you’ll get fat. And that is so wrong. I really think that enjoying food is an important part of a healthy diet.”
Social scientist at Nottingham Trent University in England, Jack Hardwicke, said that there’s a stigma that cycling in general is a “weight-sensitive sport, it’s very engrained from the elite level down.”
“Coaches have a responsibility that when they’re coaching, what are they focusing on? How are they talking about weight? How are they talking about body image? How are they helping athletes develop a healthy relationship between their sport, their health and performance, and what’s the balance,” Hardwicke questioned to CNN Sports.
“Team managers might not see their athletes as humans all the time – they see them as people that they need to perform for the team to survive.”
“When you speak to people that have suffered with eating disorders and disordered eating, the mental battle is really the biggest part. It’s very closely aligned with things like body image issues, self-confidence issues … I think that’s where the real issue is,” Hardwicke stated.
Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), which acts as cyclists global governing body, released a statement on REDs syndrome specifically: “The UCI’s role is to raise awareness of the health risks associated with uncontrolled weight loss, and to support doctors with resources to facilitate their work in clinical practice.
“For this, the UCI is in the process of finalising documentation and tools that can be used by team doctors to enable the diagnosis of REDs. The strategy is to rely on a screening and risk-assessment tool validated and published by an International Olympic Committee (IOC) consensus group.”
For Pooley, when she looks at the current state of cycling and where it’s heading, she said she was “encouraging riders to eat better and eat more. The more you train, the more you have to eat.”
In her new book “Oat to Joy,” Pooley not only provides recipes, but discusses her own life chronicling food-based memories from her career.
“I can exactly remember the pizza at the end of the Giro (d’Italia) in 2011 after I didn’t win. Certainly, with races, I can remember the special food that we had the dinner after. I’m just really good at remembering what I ate.”
Pooley focuses more on running now when it comes to athletics, and even continues to compete in trail events and world championship races. She still cycles, but just for fun, and when she does, she says she always makes sure to make cafe stops beforehand to make sure she’s enjoying the sport in a way she never felt she did during her professional career.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
