Lingerie Football Reinforcing the Portrayal of Women in Sport

When I read Pat Griffin's March 21st blog about the Lingerie Football League, LFL, I immediately thought about our reading this week on the female athlete triad. In the reading, it explains the potentially life threatening effects that the triad can have on women athletes. The triad usually comes about when a female athlete is expected to be unrealistically thin for her sport. This usually occurs in sports where the body is perceived to play a large role in an athletes performance. These sports can range from gymnastics, figure skaters, runners, and much more. Pat Griffin begins her blog telling her readers about how the female "athletes" bodies and the uniforms they wear reinforce the way in which the media emphasises the female body. I do not know if this has been proven or not but, I think that there is a strong correlation between the media's portrayal of the perfect female body, which a is slender, tone, and, often times, big breasted women, and the female athlete triad. Female athletes see the media's portrayal of the perfect female body and, more often than not, try and obtain that body for themselves when the majority of the time it is simply not feasible. Female athletes that choose to try and obtain the perfect female body subject themselves to over excerption while training and unhealthy eating habits, both of which can have grave consequences. In a perfect world the media, along with organizations like the Lingerie Football League, would realize that the messages that they are sending these female athletes is unrealistic. Not every women has the capability to obtain the "perfect" body and, with a little help from the media, I hope that one day women will not be pressured to reach the unobtainable goals laid out to them by the media and the LFL.