“I got my period in the bathroom right before my Olympic selection performance…” Kanako Murakami about a past where eating was imprinted as bad and she was ignorant about health
Kanako Murakami speaks openly about weight management in sport and struggles she has faced.
original source: nordot.app dd. 2d March 2024 by Hideaki Kamihara
Here’s atranslation of the article and Kanako Murakami’s comments on “Weight Management” made in an interview for The Answears’ International Women’s Week which focuses on various female athletes and issues in sports, to coincide with International Women’s Day on March 8th.
Last October Kanako Murakami opened up about her body image issues on Instagram, confessing the struggles she faced with weight management throughout her life. She immersed herself in the sport aiming for the Olympics from a young age, without the knowledge to protect her body, she suffered from irregular menstruation and stress fractures.
On October 25th last year, Kanako Murakami posted on her Instagram starting with a phrase, “I had to be thin for my career since I was active, so eating food from a young age became a special act.” She wrote about how she disliked her mother’s surveillance gaze when she was eating, and how she became uncomfortable being watched. She was hurt and lost confidence when her post-retirement weight gain of 13 kilograms was pointed out to her. In a society like Japan where “being beautiful, pretty, and cute” is emphasized, she had a complex about her short legs. Nevertheless, she is desperately struggling to love her body.
“I actually just wrote what I was thinking honestly, without any intention of ‘I’m going to say it!’ so the response was also overwhelming to me. I used to laugh about being overweight. ‘I’ve gained weight’ ‘I have muscles in my legs, so I want to wear short skirts, but I have a complex’ like that. It was a way to turn it into a joke and escape from embarrassment. But I discovered that many people are also worried about their body shape, and I was surprised and received warm words, which actually gave me more energy,” said Murakami.
Since she was a grade school student weighing less than 30 kilograms, she had been told by her seniors, “It’s nice to be light,” and her mother’s teaching was, “Always leave the last bite of your meal.”
“There was a KFC under the practice rink, so I would secretly buy chicken on the way home, or when it became a McDonald’s, I would buy fries. It would take me 20 minutes to get home on my bike while eating what I bought. There were times when I had ice cream too (laughs). Even when eating out, my mother would say, ‘You can order as much as you want, but make sure to cut everything into bite-sized pieces.’ Whatever was left, my mother would eat. I was not allowed to eat a lot of rice. It was very stressful. My mother was unconsciously watching me, and even though I wasn’t being watched, I started to feel like I was being watched.”
She started worrying about her weight at the age of 18. Her body grew slowly, and she had her first period around that time. This led to a change in her body shape. It was just before the 2014 Sochi Olympics season.
“I gained weight even though I was pushing myself as hard as everyone else. I started to feel like I was gaining fat, and my coach also told me a lot about my body shape, saying, ‘Your butt shakes when you spin,’ and ‘Your movements are heavy.’ I became very conscious of other athletes who were also restricting their diet. I felt guilty, thinking, ‘That girl isn’t eating, but I am,’ or competing, ‘What are you eating? This is how I am.’ My height also grew when I entered college, making my body shape even more urgent.”
Kanako also revealed that the practice rink was surrounded by mirrors, and she developed a habit of looking at her legs every time she passed by. When she stood next to other skaters at competitions or ice shows, she was conscious of how to make her legs look thinner and posed for photos.
She was indifferent to her period. What she thought was, “If it doesn’t come, it’s better not to come.” Sometimes it would come in a month, sometimes it wouldn’t come for three months or six months. Sometimes she thought it was coming but it didn’t, and sometimes she thought it wasn’t coming but it suddenly did.
At the Japanese Nationals in December 2013, which also served as the selection competition for the Sochi Olympics, Murakami, who was 19 at the time, finished the 6-minute warm-up before her performance and realized that she had her period when she went to the restroom about ten minutes before her turn.
“But when I thought, ‘Ah, it came,’ my emotions would be taken there, so I convinced myself, ‘It hasn’t come, I haven’t seen anything,’ and pretended not to know, and performed that way. If my costume had been white, it would have been tough, but I really didn’t know when my period would come. I was always in that state.”
Murakami had many stress fractures. Irregular menstruation is considered one of the causes, but she laughs, saying, “Is that so? I didn’t know that. So that’s why I had so many.” “But I had a sense that I could still practice even with stress fractures. I never really thought deeply about my body, and when I talk about it now, I realize I was in quite a harsh environment.”
Murakami also confessed, “I don’t feel like I was particularly strict compared to others, because everyone around me was practicing in a similar environment. I think I was able to go to the Olympics because I worked so hard, and I have no regrets.”
Looking back on her 20-year athletic career, where she adhered to the principle of “always leaving the last bite of your meal,” she has something to say to the younger generation.
“I didn’t have the luxury to pay attention to anything other than skating. If my period didn’t come, I’d rather it didn’t. I wouldn’t think anything of it even if it didn’t come for six months. Until I retired, I didn’t do anything other than skating, and I didn’t study (about health) either. At that time, the coaches used old-fashioned methods, and they would comment on appearance or movement (based on intuition). It was the same overseas, where even foreign coaches would say things like ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight, so you’ll success this year,’ based on body shape. I’ve seen many athletes, not just in Japan but in every country, develop eating disorders, and it didn’t seem to change.”
After retiring, she started going to a gynecologist, and her interest began to shift toward her own body. That’s why she wants to convey this message to young skaters who are dedicated to figure skating now.
“It’s very important to create ‘reward days.’ After competitions, I decided to ‘eat!’ at banquet parties and ate at buffets without worrying. Of course, it’s important to have knowledge of nutrition, and eating well can lead to good performance. Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to have mental care or nutritionists, and there are more skaters who can jump powerfully. Providing opportunities for athletes to learn to enhance their competitive skills is also an important step, not just to lose weight and have a beautiful body.”
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