#120: Shifting Toxic Sport Culture: Reflections on Lauren Fleshman's "Good for a Girl"

Listen in as Opal's Director of the Exercise + Sport program, Kara Bazzi, and Opal's Movement Coach, Caitlin Jacobsen have a conversation about "Good for a Girl", a newly released book written by former professional runner, coach and author, Lauren Fleshman. "Good for A Girl" is a memoir (and part manifesto) which follows Lauren's distance running career to the upper echelons of elite levels of sport performance. Although the elite distance running world is exclusionary, and centers the white, thin, able bodied, cis-male experience, Lauren's story highlights something that is relatable to a wider audience: how society's toxic cultural messaging about who "belongs" is a driving factor for developing disordered eating and eating disorders. Kara and Caitlin draw from their identities as distance runners as well as clinicians working in the eating disorder treatment field, as they highlight important themes from the book. They also use this as an opportunity to encourage and inform listeners about eating disorder treatment, which was a topic not discussed in the book. This episode offers hope that specialized treatment does exist for the athlete!  **Check out our other Shifting Toxic Sport Culture episode here.   Links: Lauren Fleshman + Link to her book "Good for a Girl" Wildwood Running Mind Body Endurance Athlete Edge EDCare Book:  Girls Running   Connect with Opal:  www.opalfoodandbody.com @The.Appetite.Podcast @Opal.Movement   Thank you to our team... Editing by David Bazzi Music by Aaron Davidson: https://soundcloud.com/diet75/ Sound engineering by Ayesha Ubayatilaka at Jack Straw Studios