I Crushed My Race. I Hated My Finishing Photo. Let's Talk About Diet Culture.
I crossed the finish line at YWCA Minneapolis Women's Triathlon on Sunday. 2nd place out of 167 women in my age group. I punched a ticket to nationals. I felt strong, fast, capable.
And when the finishing photos came out? My first thought was: I hate how big I look.
Not "I crushed that race." Not "look how strong I am." Just: My body looks too big in that tri kit.
It's wild, right? I'm a sport psychologist. I know what diet culture is. I teach about it. I preach about it. And still, my brain went straight to body size instead of performance. Both things can be true: I absolutely crushed that race, and I wasn't happy with my finishing photo. Let's talk about why.
How Diet Culture Affects Female Athletes and Body Image
Here's the part that surprised even me when I went back to the research: on average, female athletes actually report lower body dissatisfaction than non-athletes. The largest meta-analysis on the question (56 studies) found a small but real protective effect of sport participation (Chapa et al., International Journal of Eating Disorders, 2022). So sport isn't the villain here.
But the average hides something important. That same meta-analysis found that sport type changes everything. Athletes in "leanness" sports (endurance sports that reward a thin physique, like distance running), aesthetic sports (judged on appearance, like gymnastics and dance), and weight-class sports (like rowing and wrestling) report significantly more body dissatisfaction and disordered eating than athletes in other sports (Chapa et al., International Journal of Eating Disorders, 2022; De Souza et al., Sports Medicine, 2026). Triathlon and other endurance sports get grouped with the lean sports (Lundqvist et al., PLoS One, 2022), tight-fitting kits, lean-body messaging, finish-line cameras capturing every angle.
Diet culture teaches us that our bodies exist to be looked at, evaluated, and shrunk. Lean culture, the athletic version of diet culture, tells us that smaller bodies perform better, that visible muscle definition equals fitness, that "race weight" is a real and necessary thing.
These messages don't disappear just because you know they're harmful. They're baked into the sport environment. Research modeling how appearance pressure reaches athletes finds that family, media, teammates, and coaches all feed body dissatisfaction and disordered eating through thin-ideal and athletic-ideal internalization and appearance comparisons (Tonsberg et al., Body Image, 2026). They're in the race photos, the social media feeds, the comments from well-meaning strangers about how "fit" you look. As we discuss in our guide on social media and body confidence, these external inputs compound how athletes see themselves.
The result? Some of us finish strong races and immediately focus on how our body looks instead of what our body did, and that pull is strongest exactly where lean-sport culture is loudest.
Your Body Got You Across That Finish Line
Here's what my body did:
Swam 500 yards
Biked 15.5 miles
Ran 3.1 miles
Placed 2nd out of 167 women ages 35-39
Qualified for nationals
My body (the one I wasn't happy with in the photo) did all of that. And here's where the research is genuinely encouraging: appreciating your body for what it can do, its functionality, is consistently linked with fewer body-image problems, lower levels of disordered eating, and better mental health and wellbeing (Linardon et al., Body Image, 2023). Athletes tend to report higher functionality appreciation than non-athletes, likely because training pushes us to prioritize performance over appearance (Baceviciene et al., Scientific Reports, 2025). Most of this evidence is cross-sectional, so I won't overclaim cause and effect, but the pattern is strong and consistent.
But shifting from appearance to function takes practice. It's not a one-and-done mindset flip. It's ongoing work, especially when you're bombarded with images that prioritize aesthetics over performance. As we explore in our guide to embodiment, learning to listen to and trust your body is a skill that requires deliberate practice.
What to Do When You Hate Your Race Photos
If you've ever looked at race photos and felt that gut-punch of body dissatisfaction, here's what helps:
Name it. Say out loud (or write down): "Ahh, I see what's happening. Diet culture is affecting how I see this photo. That's WILD how my first reaction is about my body size, not my performance." Naming the influence takes away some of its power.
Redirect to function. Ask yourself: What did this body do today? What am I capable of? Interventions that deliberately train functionality appreciation reliably improve it compared with control conditions (Linardon et al., Body Image, 2023).
Self-compassion practices. This one has real evidence behind it. A meta-analysis of 59 studies found higher self-compassion is associated with lower eating pathology and fewer body-image concerns, and that self-compassion interventions outperform control groups (Turk & Waller, Clinical Psychology Review, 2020). In women collegiate athletes specifically, self-compassion predicted lower disordered eating over time, and body satisfaction and disordered eating were unlikely to improve on their own without it (Kit et al., Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 2025). Treat yourself with the same kindness you'd offer a teammate.
Curate your feed. If your social media is full of "race weight" talk and lean-body imagery, it's going to shape how you see yourself, more exposure means more body dissatisfaction, and among young athletes greater time on these platforms tracks with worse effects on mood, sleep, and self-image (Tooth et al., Frontiers in Psychology, 2026). We have a guide here on building digital wellness and choosing accounts that support your mental health.
Talk about it. The more athletes speak openly about body image struggles (even when we "should know better"), the more we normalize that this work is hard for everyone. Building self-worth beyond performance outcomes is a lifelong practice.
Practice this work in community. If you want ongoing support as you build a healthier relationship with your body and shift away from diet culture messaging, join the Skadi Community. Our November challenge focuses specifically on recognizing and resisting diet culture in sport, with guided activities, reflections, and a community of athletes (and myself!) doing this work alongside you. Learn more about Skadi Communityand join us for the journey.
The Work Continues
I wish I could tell you that once you "get it," the effects of diet culture disappear. They don't. Diet culture is pervasive, insidious, and deeply embedded in how we talk about athletes' bodies (especially women's bodies), and lean-sport culture adds its own layer of pressure on top.
But here's what I DO know: The fact that I noticed my first reaction? That's major. The fact that I can hold both truths (I crushed that race and I had a hard time with the photos)? Also major. The fact that I'm talking about it publicly? Let's goooooo 🔥
You can place 2nd out of 167 and still struggle with how you look in a tri kit. You can be a psychologist who teaches about diet culture and still be affected by it. You can know all the right things and still have hard days.
The work continues. And you're crushing it.
References
Baceviciene, M., Balciuniene, V., & Jankauskiene, R. "Psychometric Properties of the Lithuanian Version of the Functionality Appreciation Scale." Scientific Reports, 2025.
Chapa, D. A. N., Johnson, S. N., Richson, B. N., et al. "Eating-Disorder Psychopathology in Female Athletes and Non-Athletes: A Meta-Analysis." International Journal of Eating Disorders, vol. 55, no. 7, 2022.
Chen, J., & Tao, T. "Investigating the Relationship Between Social Media Exposure, Body Image Dissatisfaction, and Self-Compassion in Adolescent Athletes." Frontiers in Psychology, 2026.
De Souza, M. J., Williams, N. I., Misra, M., et al. "2025 Update to the Female Athlete Triad Coalition Consensus Statement Part 1." Sports Medicine, 2026.
Kit, O., Petrie, T. A., & Moore, E. W. "Do Self-Compassion and Body Satisfaction Protect Women Collegiate Athletes From Disordered Eating?" Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 2025.
Linardon, J., Messer, M., & Tylka, T. L. "Functionality Appreciation and Its Correlates: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis." Body Image, 2023.
Lundqvist, C., Schary, D. P., Eklöf, E., Zand, S., & Jacobsson, J. "Elite Lean Athletes at Sports High Schools Face Multiple Risks for Mental Health Concerns." PLoS One, 2022.
Tonsberg, E. N., Dixit, U., Henderson, R., et al. "The Tripartite Influence Model of Body Image and Disordered Eating Among Young Adult Athletes." Body Image, 2026.
Tooth, C., Kaux, J. F., Tscholl, P., et al. "The Influence of Social Media on Young Athletes' Mental Health: A Cross-Sectional Study." Frontiers in Psychology, 2026.
Turk, F., & Waller, G. "Is Self-Compassion Relevant to the Pathology and Treatment of Eating and Body Image Concerns? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis." Clinical Psychology Review, 2020.
