Health to Pay: Pressures Push Jockeys to Extremes for Weight Loss

Horseracing’s dirty little secret push jockeys to starve, sweat, and purge, then go out and risk their lives on the racetrack. Jockeys violate their bodies in order to achieve proper dress in the workplace. Jockeys use several techniques to reduce their weight before a big race—most of these techniques are harmful and unhealthy for the body. Specific techniques include “flipping” meals by sticking a finger down his throat forcing himself to vomit, and sweating away the weight in a “hot box”. Flipping is conceivably the most controversial practices that neither jockeys or management is even willing to discuss. To be a jockey, there is a certain weight limit required, however maintaining these extreme weight requirements should be done in a civil healthier manner. The fact of the matter is that the racing environment encourages drastic techniques such as “flipping” and “hot boxing,” even management teams at the racetrack accommodate the practice of flipping, by providing jockeys with a special bowl. There are several careers that condone extreme measures to make their weight. Jockeys, models, wrestlers, body builders, and pageant girls are a few professions that result in extreme weight loss techniques. Consequently these extreme measures are harmful to the body and its organs, further down the line these extreme measures could have life-threating consequences. ~ Chelsea 

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/23/sport/jockey-diets-weight-horse-racing/

Not many people know what goes behind the scenes when it comes to horseracing. All sports have certain standards for their athletes, but none are as strict as the weight loss requirement for jockeys. In reality, “jockeys go to extreme lengths to stunt their growth – sometimes down to the size of a pre-pubescent child”. In this industry, a few extra pounds can take you out of a multi-million dollar race, so jockeys are put under enormous amounts of pressure to meet miniature weight requirements. In the U.S. the minimum riding weight is 53kg (116 lbs), the average weight of a 14 to 15-year-old boy. One of the ways desperate riders try to lose a pound or two before a competition is by purging themselves in something that’s called a “heaving bowl”. They are installed in U.S. racetracks for vomiting, or “flipping”, and it is one of the most extreme dieting methods used by professional jockeys.  This practice is so extreme that there have been deaths caused by it. Jockeys would “flip” probably around 10-15 times a day to reach the desired weight limit. Jockeys push themselves past their limits to stay on top of their game. ~ Ashley

Source(s): http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/23/sport/jockey-diets-weight-horse-racing/

http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=4121499

There are times were the passion of being a fitted athlete can ruin your health.

Have you ever felt like the need to fit in society’s ideals? You would do the impossible just to feel part of something?

Randy Romero shared his story and confessed how he would stick his finger down his throat to lose weight and become a 70lbs jockey. The world’s top money-winning jockey, Chris McCarron stated that jockeys need to understand the damage they are creating in their bodies by practicing extreme weight loss techniques.

It is important to keep awareness that your health is the most important. I will always remember my grandparent’s advice, what ever you do now or consume will come back and bite you later. ~Brenda