Happy Weekend, everyone! And welcome to the ninth issue of the Game Changer series! Today we will be talking about how Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Alek Manoah defended his teammate, catcher Alejandro Kirk, when he got body shamed online.
We are joined by former athlete Caity, former dancer Lauren, and athletic therapy major Catherine, to give us insight on the topic.
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We hope you have as much fun reading and listening to our story as we had creating it
— Kartik and Kennedy
How Alek Manoah changed the game by standing up for his teammate on social media
Conversations around body image can be a double-edged sword. For some, they can act as a weapon against achieving your dreams or having confidence in your appearance. For others, body positivity can motivate you to achieve what might seem impossible.
For athletes, having body positivity is as important as having a good diet — especially for those breaking barriers about what an athlete should look like.
These athletes and the conversations they start help kids dispel myths that to be an athlete they have to look a certain way — or fit a certain mold — no matter how good they are in that sport.
An important conversation about body image in sports happened this past September, involving Alejandro Kirk, a Toronto Blue Jays Catcher. It started when the host of a TSN radio show reposted a video of Kirk scoring a run from first base. The host claimed Kirk “feeds negative stereotypes,” and was “embarrassing for the sport.”
Alek Manoah, a starting pitcher and Kirk’s teammate on the Blue Jays, responded by saying, “What’s embarrassing for the sport is people that go by the name of Matthew and have never played a day in the big leagues thinking they can control the narrative and stereotypes. Go ahead and tell that 8-year-old kid who is 10 lbs. overweight that he should quit now.”
Critiques and athlete opinions on body shaming
Many experts, including Catherine Tremblay, an Athletic Therapy major at York University, were critical of the body shaming comment made by the TSN host:
“Like, to have someone like Alejandro Kirk who plays in the major leagues shamed for ‘embarrassing the sport’ because he doesn’t exactly fit the ideal of what we think of an athlete is ridiculous,” she says.
“I think even more than having the athletes come out with the pressures they face, having support from your teammates is also super important. So to have Alek Manoah shut that whole conversation down really highlights how team unity can change the culture around body shaming.”
In recent years, more athletes have started to come forward and talk about body positivity, drawing awareness to the fact body shaming has severe negative consequences, and can lead to athletes quitting sports, developing eating disorders, and having low self-esteem.
Calvin Martins, a hockey player for the Varsity Blues of the University of Toronto, says, “I had some body issues early on in my career, especially with the amount of competition you get when there are scouts at your games.”
“Constantly comparing yourself to people with leaner bodies, or who have leaned into the cutting season can seriously mess you up in terms of what you think you should look like,” Martins added.
Cody Miller, for example, is an American swimmer and a 2016 Olympic gold and bronze medalist, who has pectus excavatum, a congenital deformity in which the sternum grows inwards, which causes the middle of the chest to be caved in. His condition was barely noticeable until he was 12 or 13 years old, and growth stopped after adolescence. But due to his condition, he used to get bullied and laughed at, which led Miller to agonize over removing his shirt until his race was about to start — only feeling at ease when his body was in the water. In an interview with Global Sports, Miller said that it took him a long time to get over his body image issues and that it shattered his self-worth.
Major impacts of body shaming on athletes
Another negative consequence of body shaming is eating disorders, which are very common in athletes. Eating disorders are often seen as a female issue, but many male athletes struggle with them as well, which can go unnoticed and have serious health consequences.
A study done by the National Library of Medicine found that among college students, 35 percent of women and 10 percent of men were at risk of anorexia nervosa, and 58 percent of women and 38 percent of men were at risk for bulimia nervosa. Elite athletes are nearly three times more likely to have an eating disorder than the average college athlete.
Athletes like Alejandro Kirk inspire many young athletes, spreading a message of motivation and body positivity over a specific body type.
“I think having less tolerance for body shaming and supporting those who do speak out is important in protecting the self-esteem of young athletes, as well as teaching them to work out and eat healthily, and to identify eating disorders and when to get help,” Martins says.
🎧 Listen to the podcast above for more conversation about body shaming in sports
Related Reading
When clean eating became an eating disorder - Patrick Devenny, a former football player for the University of Colorado Buffaloes, details how he suffered from binge eating and exercise-induced bulimia.
Eating disorders in male athletes - A paper on Eating Disorders (ED) from the National Library of Medicine. “A number of factors contribute to elevated ED risk among men, including…media portrayals of dieting and exercise…[and] social media messages increasingly targeting body shape…”
Author bios
Kennedy Meraw is a fourth-year Bachelor of journalism student at Humber College. She has a great passion for sports journalism and wants to pursue it after her graduation.
You can contact her by email (kennedymeraw4@gmail.com)
Kartik Sharma is a social media manager and a fourth-year Bachelor of journalism student. He has a great passion for content writing and doing something out of the box. Kartik aspires to have a career as a social media manager or a public relations coordinator.
You can contact him by email (kartik.ks1001@gmail.com) or Twitter
The Blue Jays' Alek Manoah: changing the way we look at athletes