Olympic champion Janja Garnbret comments on eating disorders in sport climbing: “Being light doesn’t mean being strong”

Education about eating disorders in sport climbing

In a sport where athletes hang from boulders on impossible inclines and scale 15-meter walls in under five seconds, every pound counts.

At least that’s what it looks like for sport climbers looking for rapid progress.

Less labor intensive or time consuming than training, reduce meals is often hailed as the ultimate shortcut to getting faster on a climbing wall. Stepping into a gym of rail-thin climbers, where a starved body elicits compliments rather than concern, confirms that attitude.

It’s an environment Garnbret, who started the sport at the age of seven, knows all too well.

Five days before the start of IFSC World Championships in Sport Climbing 2023 — all eyes on the then six-time world champion — Garnbret created an Instagram post that caused a stir throughout the sports community.

It was a black-and-white photo of the Olympic champion and contained the simple caption: “Are we going to raise the next generation of skeletons?” Let’s not look away.”

In the text accompanying the post, Garnbret went into detail about the problem of eating disorders in sport climbing and called for more awareness and action.

“This was a very, very sensitive subject so getting the words right was very important,” she told Olympics.com. “I didn’t want to name names or [be] offensive. I just wanted to share my thoughts on this so as not to be disrespectful in any way.

“I also have friends who have been in a situation like this and I’ve seen what happened to them and I just don’t want anyone else to have to go through something like this.”

“I wanted to say that being light doesn’t mean being strong, you can be healthy and you can be a good athlete” – Janja Garnbret on Olympics.com

Eating disorders are rampant among both elite and amateur sport climbers, and more of them are now beginning to tell their stories.

One athlete recalled the pride he falsely felt when his extreme weight loss earned him the nickname “Auschwitz Boy,” while other climbers spoke about their self-destructive patterns of starving, binge eating, and then punishing them with excessive training.

“It starts with how we talk about food. We need to talk about food as fuel and not as a bad thing,” Garnbret said. “We can’t turn a blind eye to the fact that rock climbing is a weight-based sport, so we have to fight gravity. And of course you want to be light, but not too light, and there is a fine line between being too light.”

“As a society, we first have to talk openly about it. We need to talk about how we define what fit means, does it mean this or that. And we need to be open about it. Coaches really need to be too.” We’re educated on that because there are coaches who actually tell their athletes they need to be thinner, but that’s not sustainable, nor is it the way to go. That is why we first have to create a healthy environment in which you can thrive and that is the most important thing.”