To think these women should be banned from using the gym?

[CakeMeIAmYours]

I use a local gym, usually infrequently for weights etc and tend to run outside. The recent rubbish weather has meant that I've spent a lot more time running at the gym recently, and I can't help but notice these two seriously, seriously underweight women are always in there.

When I say underweight, I'm not talking about size 0, but quite clearly in the grips of a serious eating disorder.

They do some fairly hardcore fat burning work outs, and to make matters worse, seem to be in some sort of competition with one another - like they are competing to be the last one off the rower/last one to leave etc.

FWIW, I have an underweight friend (medical reasons, not food related) who has been recommended by her doctor to use the gym to build some muscle, but what these women are doing is very obviously an attempt to lose even more weight.

I think the gym environment is probably exacerbating their issues; whenever either of them walk around in the gym, everyone stares in pity and there is an almost audible gasp of horror. They seem to be almost proud of this . They also both wear pretty revealing gym clothes (crop tops, tiny shorts) as if to show off their extreme thinness.

It's really worrying, and I'm wondering if the management of the gym ought to step in and say that they cannot use the gym until they are of a more sensible weight. Then again, they are grown women and I can see the argument that the gym has no place telling them what to do.

Our contracts, btw state that the onus is on the user to inform the gym of any health issues they might have - they have limited their liability in every case other than that of injuries caused by malfunctioning equipment.

Tbh, these women have both got to the stage where, if they were a relative/friend of mine, I would be doing everything in my power to ensure they were in hospital being tube fed. Surely the gym has some form of moral responsibility to help them, or at least prevent them from harming themselves?

Latara

Ultimately a garage is not promoting health though is it. Nor is WHsmith. That's the difference IMO.

Surely a members club has more of a duty of care than a high street shop?

I read an article by an lady with anorexia who was banned from her gym as they were so concerned for her. This was a bit of a wake up call for her.

I do think gyms have a responsibility to their clients.

I think you can tell the difference between someone in the grips of anorexia and someone who is just naturally skinny or slim.

Helloclitty - I understood that the body hair occurs when someone is dangerously underweight & their body struggles to keep warm. I didn't realise that the body could distinguish between weight loss due to an eating disorder and weight loss that it due to the body's inability to digest and absorb fat... Surely the end result is the same, so you still can't tell why a person is so thin, merely by looking at them?

YANBU. There was a woman who went to my gym who would regularly do 2 hours non stop on the high cardio stuff. I saw her in the shower and as well as having lanugo (excess body fur) she had bruises on her buttocks where her bones jutted through as she sat down. I was so so sad for her.

I think the gym do have a responsibility to take them aside and have a word TBH.

One of the mums of a child in my daughter's class recently confessed she has real issues with not eating, thinking she is fat and dreading putting on weight, and we all said she should see the doctor about it asap. Good that she can admit & talk about it at least.

If they were THAT ill, they wouldnt really have the energy to do all that exercise, or I would have thought that anyway...

On the contrary: my cousin had anorexia when she was a teenager. She was 5ft 4ins tall and got as low as 5 stone in weight. She looked as if she was from the third world as you see every bone in her body. She had abundant energy however and got violent with her parents and sister when they tried to make her eat. Apparently she kicked like a mule.

You'd be surprised re the energy levels.

There is a difference between athleticly thin (Paula Ratcliffe) and seriously, dangerously underweight. These women definitely fell into the later category. To give you an idea, the rower woman has a special little cushion that she has to use, presumably because she has such little of her own fat left .

btw, I'm not one of these overweight people who think anything less than a size 14 is anorexic DGran, I'm looking at you. there can be no doubt at all that these women have serious problems.

Its difficult to explain what I mean by this, but there seems to be something odd about the way they work out too; there's something really feverish and obsessive about it, really not healthy.

I have thought about striking up a conversation, but I'm terrified of saying the wrong thing, and somehow they both appear to be seeking to draw attention to their thinness. I worry that if I give it 'airtime' so to speak, it will validate their actions IYSWIM.

Its odd really, I thought a symptom of eating disorders was feeling ashamed of your body and wishing to hide it, but these women seem to be intentionally drawing attention to themselves.

There seems to be a few people questioning whether if they really were that thin, how would they have the energy to exercise - tbh, I have no idea, but there they are, pretty much every day, frantically burning calories.

Latter dagnammit!

helloclitty - point taken.. it's difficult for the trainers & attendants at my gym though - from their comments & chatting to them i know that they themselves do worry about their clients' health.
They depend on actual gym owners for their jobs, though. The gym owners are purely businessmen.
The gym is huge with latest equipment, lovely pool & spa, lots of classes. It's near some large businesses & public sector employers - so they attract a mix of workers (from cleaners to management level) with affordable membership concessions. It's in an area which is a mixture of ordinary estates & flats... but also many streets with very large expensive homes.

The gym is owned by a hotel chain & caters to guests as well as members. Some members are very rich - lots of Jaguars, Aston Martins, Porsches etc in the car park. The owners know that they are good for business. So won't risk alienating them.
Also - there's a 'Sun Shower' in the changing room (free of charge to all members - line up here for skin cancer & wrinkles!!). Also vending machines with energy drinks full of chemicals... all part of business.

The nearby council-run gym is not any different in their attitude to business - has sunbeds, costs are quite similar for members there too, the changing rooms are not so nice because the council skimp on employing cleaners. Plus it's closed more often than the hotel gym.

The thing that bothers me is that my gym asks you if you have any health issues on the application form and states that the user has the responsibility to inform the gym of any that arise.

In this case, the health issue is blindingly obvious, the gym have just chosen to ignore it.

There are a few marathon runners at my gym who look anorexic, maybe they are, maybe it's just all the excessive exercise they have to do to win in their sport that makes them look that way. It's nobody elses business, everybody minds their own and that is how it should be.

It's not up to the gym to police the weight of it's members and refuse service to those who appear to be outside the ideal healthy weight. If they start with the extremely skinny that will likely include those naturally skinny (and most nosy types can never tell the difference), those skinny for health reasons, then they'll expand to everybody not within the 'ideal weight', so the fat people will have to go (might have a heart attack on the machine), the athletes who's bmi's are too high (muscle is three times heavier than fat), those who seem to exercise too much and so on.

Who's standard are they going to use to discriminate? Obviously if someone looks like they are going to collapse, they can take them aside and have a word but it is unfair to discriminate on appearance just because some make presumptions on that. It is cruel to place people who are skinny as a result of serious illness (or naturally so) in a position where they have to explain themselves and justify their appearance and presence to every nosy person in the gym.

My mother was a high functioning anorexic and had enormous willpower to push herself and her body to frightening extremes. The strange thing is any comment about her weight would be a huge boost to her, and she would take it as a great compliment on her thinness, it is a state of mind, and the sufferers are usually very sick mentally as well as physically.

An anorexic isn't going to admit it on their gym application.

I don't think i actually admitted to having epilepsy on my gym application as i was too embarrassed.
Plus i see some very large people in the gym who are at potential risk of heart failure just as anorexic people are. Not all those who are morbidly obese can get GP referrals or afford personal trainers - so they aren't monitored on how hard they push themselves.
The notices in the gym state 'if you feel breathless, pain, dizzy etc etc stop & see your GP' but how many people actually do that?
When you first start exercising after a break then you do feel dizzy & breathless.
Ironically i once stupidly didn't eat enough before a workout, was in the changing room after feeling quite faint & shaky, & the girl with anorexia came up to me & advised me to go & buy a chocolate bar... i've never seen her eat though (hopefully she eats now that she's had some treatment though.) She even said i had a nice figure (i was obese). That is how ill anorexics are.

I hope she maintains her recovery; she's such a nice girl.

It's nobody elses business, everybody minds their own and that is how it should be.

This is the point I'm having trouble with. Is this right? Should be all mind our own business and allow people who are killing themselves just get on with it?

People who are considered a danger to themselves or others can be (and often are) sectioned under the Mental Health Act, and it is a well established principle of law that everybody has a duty of care to everybody else. (Lord Atkins' Neighbour principle).

Is it 'nosy' to care about the wellbeing of others?

Yes, the gym does have a duty of care towards them. Presumably they would not allow someone to join who has been told not to exercise by their doctor? The fact that they would just go and exercise elsewhere is neither here nor there.

I saw a woman with an eating disorder in the supermarket the other day. She was in there for about half an hour, picking up all sorts of things and putting them in her basket then changing her mind and putting them back on the shelves. In the end she left with a jar of instant coffee and some shower gel .

To all the people up above wondering about energy- I'm surprised no one has mentioned amphetamines yet.

When I was coxing we used to get weighed nearly every day so routine was - wake up and hydrate - no food all day - caffeine pills then gym before weigh-in session with hard cardio to sweat out all the water - get weighed at minimum daily weight with no waterweight- home and eat light dinner.

Caffeine pills can give you a really strong buzz.

Unfortunately not eating and living on caffeine fucks with your sleep and turns you into a complete bitch. As coxes part of our job was to 'encourage' the rowers at training sessions and I vividly remember making a 6' tall postgraduate medical student cry during a training session

On the other hand I was at my target weight for the race

YABU.

I do think the gym owner could and should have a quiet word (and for all you know they have), but s/he is not a doctor and is not qualified to judge who needs banning on medical grounds. That's why they have the medical disclaimer forms.

Op I don't thnk it's up to the gym but I frequently have the same thoughts about a woman at my gym, she attends every spinning class during the day and is clearly ill. I suppose it's for families to Intervene.

Also we don't stop alcoholics from buying alcohol and obese people from buying food, where would it stop?

"Its not the gyms job to police it users"

All the gyms that i have joined have always had it written that they will refuse entry to anyone with a dangerously low or high BMI, unless they have a doctors note, that includes the one i use now,a council run one.

The gym is at fault, as they have a duty of care. That is why an induction etc is needed, as well as properly trained staff.

A relative of mine has extremely severe Anorexia and Bulimia.
She's suffered with this for years; when I say severe, I mean it.
Many other family members have speculated that the only reason she's still here is because she's a nurse, and knows exactly how much she needs to eat to stay alive.
Until relatively recently (not sure if she still goes or not) she was going to our local gym, and had been going for years.
I'm sorry, but she SHOULDN'T have been allowed, they should have bloody stopped her.

There was a woman at the gym I used to play squash at who was shockingly thin and used to sit for hours on an exercise bike in a thick woolly jumper, not going very fast, she didn't seem to have much energy.

You could see in her face and hands how thin she was under the baggy clothes. I wish I'd said something now to the staff. I think they should have intervened, but she'd probably just exercise in private or find another gym. It made me want to cry for her.

Cake, I know exactly what you mean. I used to do an aerobics class with a woman like this - feverish is how I would describe her approach. At warm-up and warm-down she'd still be sprinting. She too was emaciated and had fine hairs.

I too think that an establishment that is promoting health and fitness should not be profiting from a mental health problem