Jockeys are at risk for anorexia—well, like duh!

A team of sports psychologists, led by Dr. Costas Karageorghis, at Brunel University in London put out a new report earlier in the week showing that jockeys are “at-risk” for long term eating disorders and mental health problems caused by fasting for races.

Is this really science?

I mean, this may be my own pet peeve, but the field of sports psychology has a tendency to ignore really interesting understudied questions (like what is the exact neurochemistry of “being in the zone”) and instead concentrate on the blatantly obvious (like the fact that excessive dieting does, in fact, cause health problems).

But even that would be acceptable as research, my real problem is that the study didn’t set out to examine the eating habits of the perpetually lithe, it set out to figure out if there was a link between their low weight and bad moods.

Low weight and bad moods? At the risk of repeating myself—well, like, duh!

They did this at a university right? Couldn’t these researchers just walk into the school cafeteria and ask a group of girls if they were pissed off about having to fight off that freshman fifteen? Isn’t there more than enough data showing that people on diets—especially the kinds of extreme diets that sports like wrestling, horse-racing and reality television demand—are generally not happy about that fact.

Admittedly, I feel bad for the jockeys. Not only do they have to wear very silly uniforms, but it seems that 15 percent of their 41 person study group were “at risk” for an eating disorder. I get that these guys are living in saunas and taking laxatives and vomiting up breakfast to try and make weight, but using research dollars to find out if they were happy about these things just seems like a ridiculous waste of time.

Let’s see: food, clothing and shelter are still called basic needs right? So denying oneself three squares a day is bound to produce what—orgasmic waves of pleasure?