When athletes come to me with worries that their performance has declined, or parents seek help because they can see their junior athlete has lost weight or is overly focused on ‘clean eating’ I will often ask them to see the endocrinologist Dr Nicky Keay to have their blood work done so we can see whether they have REDs (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport and Dance). This is sometimes considered to be an accidental eating disorder whether the athlete is so focused on improving in their sport they increase their hours of training and don’t match that additional exercise with enough nutrition to fully fuel it, leaving them in a deficit. Over time this deficit means they lose weight, have significant hormonal changes in their body and make them far more likely to get a stress fracture. In females one of the most obvious signs is they lose their period. In males it is that they lose their morning erection.
Dr Nicky Keay has now designed a tool to help athletes understand if they might be suffering from low energy availability and you can access it here: Personal Energy Availability Questionnaire.
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