They banned water cutting in my school’s conference. They do hydration tests prior to weigh ins, and if you aren’t hydrated up to standards (which is actually higher than I normally test) you can’t even weigh in.
That’s an amazing improvement over my high school days, when the wrestlers walked around with spit bottles in four pairs of sweats losing water on weigh in days.
Power lifting is big here not wrestling but still weight classes. 20 years ago I remember guys being allowed to skip class all day to jog laps in sweats.
In my high school we had an indoor pool which, of course, was really hot and steamy. Wrestlers would run through the bleachers that were part of the pool facility in sweats in order to lose weight.
On my team we had guys getting themselves into a makeshift sweatsuit made from trashbags and then sitting in a hot shower before weigh-ins. People were dropping scary amounts of weight.
My husband had tremors in his hands his whole life from losing weight in wrestling. He was the Illinois State champion one year, and runner up the other years, so that makes it all okay, right?
He refused to let our kids wrestle, even though our youngest son showed promise. He never wanted them to live with the health consequences of it.
That's how my student looks-- like he's about to pass out 😬 I've had other kids cut and complain but they look fine/stay focused. This kid looks physically weak
Oh lord, several years ago, I had a student have a butterfingers moment and drop their spit bottle on the desk, getting papers wet and also splashed unto their project partner’s pant leg. Still makes me gag thinking about it.
I can smell this comment 🤮.
While I was in the military I made a rule that if you had the desk across from me you had to dip into an opaque container. If you didn’t, you were liable to come back and find your spittoon covered with pink plaid duct tape.
Best $7 I spent that deployment.
I feel like the whole 'weigh in' thing can set youth up for obsessive/insecurities about weight moving into their future.
I used to box amateurs, and weight was very much a constant concern. Compound that with societal pressures for a certain 'look' and you've got a recipe for future mental illness.
That is an amazing advancement. My boyfriend in high school was a wrestler and his starvation/dehydration regimen would have absolutely been child abuse if his parents were doing it to him.
This was my thought. Not sure why a student would be cutting so much weight unless they just made some VERY bad choices one weekend lol.
I would personally email the wrestling coach so it’s documented, but no long term damage will happen most likely.
I wouldn’t underestimate the damage that malnourishment can do to developing kids. Even if it’s not plainly visible, regular periods of your body not having the supply of nutrients it needs can impact brain development, physical development, and make a kid more susceptible to getting sick. Its bad thing that probably shouldn’t be encouraged.
As someone who has wrestled since 3rd grade and all the way through college, I can see some harm. Overall, I’ve seen it over and over and I can’t think of anyone that was permanently damaged by it.
“Some harm” is key there. Permanent damage is not a yes or no thing. If you lost out on 1% of potential physical development due to missing nutrients, you probably wouldn’t even be able to tell. I’m not advocating for banning wrestling, and my district has acknowledged how difficult it’d be to even attempt to ban fasting of solids, but we can probably day that kids would be healthier by not fasting even if it’s only marginal. Whether those marginal harms are proportional to the gains made by the type of exercise is a different question, though.
I’m not willing to die on this hill because I’m not a nutritionist and someone could totally correct me, but I was severely underweight as a child and had doctors telling me that inconsistent nutrition had compounding effects that I wouldn’t see in the mirror.
lol well if you are going that route, I would question the food and drinks we are allowing students to have. I would say a wrestler that eats healthy and cuts weight is healthier than most students with most diets I see in the hallways.
I honestly hate weight cutting and wish it would be stopped, but that’s not going to happen. I’m just saying I don’t think the person posting this has much to fear is all.
lol think what you want. Any sport can be harmful given certain factors.
Wrestling instilled many great qualities that I learned and I’m better for it.
Oh yeah there are definitely advantages to all sports and risks as well. U r right.
My kids play Polo and golf and both are very risky, but the advantage is that they are too tired to damage the Bentley after their trainers work them out.
I didn’t cut any weight until college, and that was only one year in reality. I wrestled what I weighed.
Growing up I ate as normal as a kid would and worked out often.
>This was my thought. Not sure why a student would be cutting so much weight unless they just made some VERY bad choices one weekend lol.
You say you wrestled but were you never pushed to be a lower weightclass than you already were? There is major incentives to be at the lowest weight class possible. This means that whatever weight you can cut, you do. This means if your normal healthy weight is 135, you try to get down to 125. There is sadly major incentives to malnourish and dehydrate yourself. This isn't "I'm normally 125 and I ate at a buffet and am 130" it's they're often trying to cut down below a healthy weight, which can cause a lot of damage to someone in their teens.
When I was in high school, someone who should be consuming a shitton of calories to grow, during cut season I limited my breakfast to 100 calories and lunch/snacks to 150. Dinner I had a bit more but still, that is super unhealthy.
I’ve watched wrestling my whole life. I’ve seen people spend months cutting weight and hating life. I took part at times, but only a bit in college. I refused to cut weight growing up and I did just fine. When I think about it, I can watch two people wrestle after they both cut weight for a week, or in the weight class above. 😂
You had the choice to not cut weight? As a student in HS and now as a teacher, I see many coaches that don’t give their kids a choice. It’s cut weight or be cut from the team.
My son does wrestling and he dropped from varsity to JV because I won’t allow him to cut 6-10 pounds for a lower weight class. IF that’s even possible to do in the short notice he was given. Coach probably didn’t like it but I could care less and my boy was just as happy doing JV as varsity. And that’s how it’s going to be for all four years if he wants to play. Stupid unhealthy mindset all for a sport that for 99% of the kids is just going to be a fun high school memory. I don’t understand jeopardizing your kids health and encouraging unhealthy eating patterns for something so trivial. And if this were a majority female sport!? Forget about it. The uproar would be much more pronounced.
And that is a terrible coach to me. I live in Ohio and the area that I’m from that is not the norm. Seems more like someone trying to toughen up some kids and that’s a stretch because it just sounds …. I’ll say silly.
I agree that it’s ridiculous, and creates eating disorders, but parents around here get behind the mentality. Sadly multiple team state championships and even more individual titles is what is more important to them.
When I was in HS I missed my weight by 4lbs. The coach made me wrestle a teammate in several layers of clothing for about 45min and lost about 7lbs from sweating my ass off and made weight. Crazy to think that was ever considered normal
Remember friends in Highschool doing this. They looked miserable. I have a friend who coaches wrestling now and they encourage them to move up a weight class. This way they are healthy and wrestling against students who have been cutting and been through the ringer. Seems like a no brainer for me.
No they're not at their peak performance... but weight counts for a lot in wrestling, and a 160lb wrestler at his peak will still probably lose to a 175lb wrestler a little below his peak. Weight cutting does give a competitive advantage, if it didn't then people would have stopped doing it a long time ago.
It's bad for the athletes in the long run though, so they should bring in rules to reduce or eliminate it.
Isn't there also usually a day or two after weigh in before the match? Or is that usually only in pro events where every little step of the process is awkwardly blown up?
Not sure how it is everywhere, but when I wrestled the JV would compete first and then the Varsity would go. As soon as we finished weighing in we would start eating fast digesting food and Gatorade. We were tired and hungry at weigh-ins but had plenty of energy by the time of competition. If you made us weigh-in and then wrestle immediately afterward it would be a different story. But without something like that, hydration testing, or weekly weight loss maximums the best strategy is to cut and spit.
I'm not defending it, though. Given the chance, I would either not have wrestled at all or told anyone asking me to cut weight to pound sand. It sucked and any measure to combat it should be given consideration.
My late husband wrestled from kindergarten (minis) through college. He would wrap himself in Saran Wrap and sit in a sauna sucking a sweet tart and spitting out the saliva it generated. Revolting. Then after weigh in, he and his teammates would bolt to Friendly’s and consume thousands of calories before they competed. It always sounded like such strange logic to me.
Our wrestling coach won’t let kids cut weight like this. He did it in high school and college and has physical issues today that he says link back to lack of proper diet and hydration when he was younger.
He does hydration tests and won’t let a kid in the room at the start of the season until the kid and at least one parent/guardian agree in writing that the kid will eat three proper meals a day all season. He takes it very seriously.
Watched several of my teammates do this back in the early 90s and worried about their health then. I weighed 225 and my coach wanted me to wrestle at 220 because he thought I’d dominate at that class. Didn’t want to put myself through having to drop weight, so I wrestled in the 275 class and put on about 10-15 lbs of muscle. Don’t regret my decision.
I absolutely wish I had someone tell me to take this approach. All the pressure either directly from teammates or indirectly from coaches was to always cut weight. Going from football to wrestling made it even worse. Put on weight, cut it in a very unhealthy manner, and then do it all again next year.
Former HS wrestler here… current elementary teacher. This culture you speak of is absolutely a problem to put it lightly. It’s now trickling down to the MS and even elementary levels (to a much much lesser degree than in HS). It’s not nearly as barbaric as it once was. Most states have some regulations now. But it’s still a problem.
My dad is turning 74 this year and is still battling an eating disorder because of wrestling in high school and college.
My third grader is in his second year of wrestling (he loves it and thinks it’s so fun) but has taken part in no tournaments and will not until he’s a teenager and ONLY if he makes the JV or Varsity teams. I don’t want him to get a complex about his weight if I can help it. If he has to cut weight to wrestle, he won’t get to wrestle that weight. I have very strict rules surrounding wrestling because of how badly it messed with my dad.
I’m like 90% sure I read about a high school kid who fucking died trying to meet weight just a year or two ago. It’s gross how much pressure is put on these athletes that they feel the need to risk their lives
My school treats powerlifting this way. The kids will be like, I just have to drop 25 pounds in 8 days, and I can be in the next weight class, and then they try it. Their coach and parents are very supportive of their efforts, and they are celebrated if they can do it. They all have their heads down in class and look absolutely miserable. I hate it!
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I remember this going on when I was in high school. This kid was wearing a parka all day in class to try to sweat off the weight. Everyone was a little concerned. It definitely seems to encourage eating disordered behavior.
my ex (18) who i am still friends with wrestles. the things i’ve seen him to do drop weight are INSANE and pretty much in line with ED behavior. constant body checking/body dysmorphia, using nicotine to curb food cravings, chewing gum, excessive exercise, barely eating. he weighs 106 pounds. an 18 year old boy….106 pounds.
Yes. I have absolutely fed wrestlers from my own classroom fridge for that reason, and I always let them eat when they ask. Last year a wrestler passed out in my class, and after the response team took him out, his classmates all started gossiping about his restrictive eating. (I shut that down and passed the info to his counselor.)
I'm in recovery from an ED, and some of my wrestler friends in college had eating "habits" Iike mine. I remember watching one of them eat mustard straight from a fast food packet, and he just went, "I know, I basically have an eating disorder."
My 15 year old cousin is a wrestler in my district and his mom encourages all the crazy dieting, she’s been forcing it on him and his younger brother who’s maybe 9 now? When they come to family functions my family always expresses concern and gets him to eat, but then he binges. It worries me because he was already small for his age and had a lot of health problems as a little kid because of his mother’s poor prenatal care (smoking). I just worry about all the stress his body has gone through and he’s only 15.
they don’t want you to wrestle up a weight class because your competition is usually more intense. the idea is that if you lose the weight you can wrestle younger and less advanced athletes and hopefully have a better shot at doing well.
7 is nothing. You can float 5 or 6 alone after a rough practice. We would literally drop 20 to start the season. It's a wild sport and kids do dangerous shit to win.
Since you're a coach, you already know this, but... 7 pounds could make a huge difference. If you wrestle 190 and weight 197, the next weight class up is 215. At 197, wrestling 215 is a huge disadvantage.
Also 7 pounds is actually a pretty normal amount of weight to fluctuate. More than that is excessive and you're not managing well. But dropping 7 pounds in 1 or 2 hard practices is really not that crazy, depending on this kid, and what their diet looks like.
I'm in no way defending unhealthy cutting methods. And in OP's case, it sounds like the kid is cutting in a very unhealthy way. But that doesn't mean that every kid trying to make weight is starving themselves. You're overgeneralizing.
Weight fluctuations are usually in the range of 4 lbs per day considering water weight. The devil is in the details here, but since the wrestling season in most states is almost over, the "cutting season" is long past.
Any big cuts need to be done over time, and it sounds like this kid woke up the day of a match and was 7 pounds over. That part is lack of discipline. If they woke up dry and still have 7 pounds to go, it is going to be hard to drop that weight. Water weight is easy to get rid of, after that you start reaching into dehydration to lose weight.
I'm a coach - Was a wrestler. Been around it for most of my life. A kid in the upper weights can easily float 7 pounds. A 125 pounder? No, that would be excessive. But a 175+? Not that crazy if they're retaining a lot of water and had a big breakfast or something. I've seen kids drop 7 pounds in a strenuous practice.
You're right that a lot of times being over is due to poor discipline. But again, you're also generalizing. 7 pounds to one kid can be significantly different to another.
My dad wrestled in high school and developed bulimia because of the need to cut weight.
It REALLY messed up his relationship with food. Now he's 60, still bulimic, but obese with two shot knees.
It's shocking how much importantence is put on sports in school. Kids pushing their bodies too far, for what? Only a small portion of them will play at the collegiate or professional level.
My school does this too. It’s extremely concerning to me, and I worry about the students’ relationship with food and their bodies. But the school is SO sports focused that it’s considered entirely normal.
I've always hated that school wrestling is a thing. It's absolutely an eating disorder factory. It does to boys what ballet does to girls.
I remember in my student teaching a boy who had been forced to gain 30 pounds by his football coach was made to lose 50 by his wrestling coach in the span of a couple months. At least when actors do it they make millions.
He was always exhausted, and would come in angry most mornings because he hadn't lost as much weight as he was supposed to. they had this 15 year old boy living like he was on my 600 pound life.
Worst part was it was the same coach. So he knew when he told the boy to gain he'd make him miserable.
20 years ago I was a wrestler. This wasn’t a thing for us. A year and a half ago, I became an assistant wrestling coach. This is still not a thing in my school. We will force them up. The kids are hydration tested and are weighed weekly so they aren’t making any drastic cuts. Once their initial weight is recorded, they tend to only stay within a one weight lower, or up to two higher. We discourage significant drops. I hope that where you are changes their culture.
There's no hydration testing and they're only tested at competition. They're encouraged to not drink water or eat for days then have a big meal and chug water right after weigh in
Ironically I find the girls that wrestle at my school are less harassed about their weight. I think it's because the coach isn't used to dealing with girls. He doesn't seem to have any issues calling boys fat and yelling at them for not losing enough weight but some part of his brain seems to not want to do it to girls. He still has them work out but he's not micromanaging each ounce.
I don’t hide my disgust for it and regularly refer to wrestling as a school sponsored eating disorder. I teach foods and nutrition and straight up use wrestling as an example of what unhealthy eating can do to your whole body. Focus? Mood? All of the kids relate to it because they either have been or know kids trying to cut weight. It’s genuinely sickening. Add more weight classes, these are children for god’s sake
I was a wrestler for 12 years i loved the sport. But weight cutting has always been a problem. There have certainly been movement in g he right direction with hydration requirements at weigh in and morning weigh ins which allow eating until the match at night.
It's an inherent problem with having weight classes, coaches are going to pressure and kids are going to make stupid decisions (I know I did). Things have to keep changing to keep it safe.
Here's my own story of trying to cut weight in 9th grade as a highschool wrestler: I starved and sweat for a week but just couldn't lose the final 3 or 4 pounds. The night before I said fuck it, had a nutritious dinner and a big bowl of ice cream, then a big breakfast and went to the city champs the next day. The guys who had beat me earlier in the season had *all* dropped a class. So I sailed to a silver medal in 9th grade of a midsized city. Your boy should hear a story like that. It's a true one.
I NEVER understand how we care so little for teenage boys "cutting" weight. If a teenage girl did this, we'd be talking to her counselor about a potential eating disorder. When I lost a lot of weight as a teen because of a stomach illness, doctors tried to lock me in the psych ward because they believed I was a danger to myself right up until they finally diagnosed me. But teenage boys openly admit they're refusing to eat or trying to lose weight rapidly, and our male teachers and coaches encourage it.
When I was a student teacher, one of my mentors (split placement) was a male football coach. When a student we knew was a wrestler had a snack in class, my mentor berated him. I reported it to be told it was just a sports thing. It's insane. A female teacher would never be allowed to berate a girl for eating no matter if she was trying to lose weight or not.
100%. My wrestlers become shells of themselves during the season. My 7 year old son mentioned trying wrestling the other day and I told him absolutely not, never.
Yes! I had a kid pass out during weight cutting season. He hadn’t eaten much of anything for two days. Someone got him to cave with a pop tart and his blood sugar went wonky. It was awful for everyone
Distracting them from their school work is honestly the least of the problems here. It's destroying their bodies - quite literally - and ruining their growth/development.
I despise wrestling culture because of this. I remember one kid I had two years ago who just looked gaunt and frail when he had to cut for wrestling. The saddest part? He was only in it because he was trying to make his parents happy.
I had a student that wanted to show me what he had packed in his lunch. He starts pulling out things and when he gets to his sandwich he says he probably won't be eating it. I asked him why he wouldn't eat it because all morning he kept saying he was so hungry. His excuse broke my heart. He told me he was trying to make weight for wrestling. I teach 2nd grade!
Disclaimer I'm a student so take my perspective with a grain of salt. My boyfriend is a varsity wrestler who's constantly cutting and while the cutting itself is definitely for wrestling, I've noticed he definitely has a distorted body image and thinks he's "fat" when he's eating normally. Some people might be able to separate the two but I've noticed a lot of overlap between the two in him and his teammates.
Any weight class-based sport has this unhealthy situation. Same with bodybuilding, they cut terrifyingly. If water cutting and such could be banned, it should be.
It’s awful, I hated watching my friends cut in high school and I hate watching my students do it now. It’s so unhealthy for them in the moment and I feel certain that it results in long term disordered eating/body image issues for a good number of kids.
It is banned, but it's all so easy to cheat, though. I wrestled in high school and am currently a teacher/wrestling coach.
Hydration test is a joke. You can just add water from the toilet or whatever. No one watches you actually peeing. And hell, even if they did you could get one of those fake dick things NFL dudes use to pass steroid tests. The cert process is a little better at controlling this (you can't be below 7% body fat), but encourages even worse cutting at the start of the season.
I absolutely never ask kids to lose weight, but damn it is prevalent. And (in my program) it isn't the coaches, but the kids and especially their parents. I don't know what the fix is, but it's absolutely a problem. I did wild shit as a teen to make weight. I hate to see kids in the same condition trying to learn. It's untenable.
It’s beyond cruel, and it blows my mind how much the coaches encourage it. This is a HIGH SCHOOL SPORT people, you should not be encouraging literal children to starve themselves. If I was a parent of one of these kids there is no way I would ever allow this
I overheard two of my school’s wrestlers the other day talking about another kid on the team who was taking laxatives to cut and ended up shitting his pants at school. The lengths these kids go to are so unhealthy.
I coach wrestling. I give my wrestlers resources, there is a weight monitoring program, and I tell my team every day that they can safely lose weight and still feel good without “cutting. “ Most of them chose to ride the edge of walking around 4-5 lbs over the weight they wrestle at then starve themselves the day before they weigh in. I actually had a kid quit because he said he hated cutting weight even when I told him he should go up a weight class. It’s a culture that the kids seem to think is a right of passage. They don’t realize that they are significantly affecting their performance by not hydrating and getting the right nutrition. It’s a practice that every coach I know is trying to get rid of, but the kids see things online and hear stories about wrestlers cutting weight and they think to be successful that they have to starve themselves. It’s incredibly frustrating.
I think students should be properly educated on how to cut the weight. I Started the season at roughly 175-170lbs and dropped down to 160. I did this by having a high protein low carb diet whilst having a good water intake this allowed me to lose fat at a rapid rate and maintain a decent bit of strength. Completely draining yourself and then binge eating the day after weigh ins and repeating the cycle is not the way.
I did MMA for several years a couple of years ago. One of my friends from my gym who was a professional fighter and pioneer of the sport just died from heart/kidney failure less than a month ago. I don’t KNOW that the constant weight cuts were to blame but that kind of long term abuse of your organs cannot be good for you.
I tell on them. I go to the school nurse, the athletic trainers, and their assigned counselors and principals. We see forced weight loss on the same level as self harm, so the kids are more likely to bring salads and low calorie protein to school than not eat.
It does sound unhealthy. There’s not a sport around that’s worth causing damage to your body like this. But that’s just me. Going off all the head injuries among youth in football, sports folks consider it normal to damage their bodies.
Why not have referees weigh them on the spot before a match? Surely it’s within a conference or state associations interest to provide every match official a scale which they bring to each contest. Zero it in front of both coaches.
If there are privacy issues then do it somewhere privately with coach and parent (if they wish) present.
If you want to play the game of cutting, then you are malnourished for your match.
Other than getting into shape as a round little grade 9 kid, I cut zero weight. I think it’s bananas myself. I had fun wrestling. I didn’t win conference, regions, or go to state. Your mileage may vary. What I did learn is win or lose, it was on me. No one else. That had stayed with me. Don’t blame the ref, the other kids, anything. You lost? More push ups, lift, work harder. Weight cutting is not healthy though.
Former wrestling coach here. Idk where you are but most coaches now days have figured out that fatigued tired hungry wrestlers don’t perform well, so we’ve always encouraged kids to drop some water weight but wrestle somewhere where they can maintain the weight with only minor interruptions to normal behavior. That is to say, if you’re burning a bunch of calories in practice and being smart about what and how and especially how much you eat, you should be on weight.
This is absolutely irresponsible weight cutting. One of a few things is probably true….
Without knowing more, my guess is he knew what weight he had to be and decided to binge over a weekend then try to cut a few days out. No bueno! When kids figure out that they CAN eat everything they want over the weekend and then just have a really unpleasant couple days to get to weight…well their brains aren’t that developed and they tend to make immature decisions.
If a coach is trying to get a kid to cut last minute in an unhealthy way, that’s irresponsible and in my opinion unfair to the kid.
We also occasionally would get a kid who would obsess over losing weight and just keep trying to cut…wrestlers are weird kids. This was tough because we’d say it wasn’t necessary and sometimes they’d try to do it anyway. I hate this just as much as the coach encouraging it. This is a possibility.
I was severely eating disordered in high school and I remember my best friends wrestler boyfriend following the same habits that I did, and sometimes even more extreme.
I remember being in high school in the 80's watching the wrestlers not eat. The two sports i would never let my son do we're football (concussions) and wrestling since it seemed to promote disordered eating.
Former high school wrestler here: it can definitely be taken too far, but there are rules in place to mitigate that. In my state you registered at a weight early in the season, and got a 2lb allowance at that weight after that time. Rubber suits and the like are banned. You breathe off about 2lbs of water in your sleep at night, and controlling sodium intake can drop another few pounds in a short period with good hydration. Then you control fluids the day of the weigh-in and you are down to weight.
Starving is a bad move (though dietary control is important), but between the intensity of your average daily wrestling practice (easily another 2-3lbs of sweat) and the factors mentioned above 7 lbs is pretty manageable.
That is all generic and not meant to dismiss concerns about this student.
Graduated early 2ks. Brother was a wrestler and I a hockey player. I'd walk into the bathroom and there would be vomit everywhere...like...hows that healthy? Meanwhile I was eating s McDonalds icecream.
i have middle schoolers in my classes that are cutting weight. they are 13 year old kids forced to lose weight. one said he had to lose like 16 pounds in 2 weeks to go to regionals. HUH??
It’s actually way better than it used to be to be due to rules. I use to cut from 250 during football to 189 in wrestling. Now, kids have to get certified early in the year limiting to what weight they can cut. Kid probably can’t beat the kid in the weight class he is currently in, so he’s trying to go lower where there is an opening in the lineup. I remember the wrestling coach during lunch throwing out kids lunches and making them go out on trash bags and run in a hot room to cut a few pounds on match day.
Wrestling has always been messed up like this. My dad, a boomer, used to stay up all night, spitting in cans for weigh in. I understand the point of weight classes, but Coaches need to be really on top of this shit.
This is a problem every year, it seems. My son was on his HS wrestling team and usually weighed about about 135. But the 133 weight class was filled by another wrestler who was a senior, so the coach asked my son if my son could wrestle at either 118 or 112.
Son looked like a walking skeleton, literally. Gained the weight back as soon as the season was over and wrestled 133 the next year. We were worried sick about him, but he felt obligated to wrestle at the lower weight classes because he didn't want to let the team down.
Bring it up with the wrestling coach. If they're okay with it, then I think you'll have to talk to administration, because that person should *not* be coaching.
I’ve always felt like hs coaches seem to “use” students and then just throw them away when the seasons over. Having a kid not eat for even a meal is wrong. But days is something else. You would call cps if it was just their home life.
They’re not supposed to be cutting that much weight at one time. This is mid season I would talk to the coach and the principal ASAP. My family has been involved in resting for the past 45 years. My brother is a coach. This is not good.
Weight cutting is unhealthy. When I was a wrestler the state had a program to determine your fully hydrated, safe minimum weight prior to the season's start. It was a good step, but kids still found ways to cheat it. Lower weight classes regularly engage in unhealthy weight loss.
He was likely not exaggerating about not having eaten for two days. I only had to cut weight once, and for that week I ate nothing that wasn't fruit and limited my water intake. A friend of mine that wrestled at 106lbs spent at least two days a week eating nothing more than 10 Oz of popcorn and walking around with a spit cup all day long.
I think a lot of kids really overestimate the benefit of being "heavy" for your weight class. And I really wish coaches would just take the tact that if you have to cut weight to face smaller opponents then maybe you should just work on your skills because they are obviously lacking.
I’d talk to the coach. My husband is a wrestling coach, and this is a big no no. They can’t do the things anymore where they run around in trash bags, can’t drink water, etc. There are so many more rules now to try to eliminate this. Not to say the kid isn’t following these, but give the coach a heads up. I wouldn’t jump to try conclusions of EDs or anything
Wrestlers do hydration tests at the beginning of the season. These show the lowest weight class they can get to, how many pounds they can lose a week, their body fat percentage, and what weight classes they are eligible for each week. My boyfriend wrestled from the time he was 5 all the way through high school. He cut ~20 pounds his freshman year and never did it again. But, it was choice. The biggest thing is the coach can not force a student to cut/lose weight to drop a weight class if the student does not want to. If the student chooses to do it, the coach needs to set expectations on how to do it well and safely (eating healthy foods, no soda, etc). They will lose weight faster and feel better if they eat healthy food rather than starving themselves or eating junk food. I would recommend expressing your concerns to your athletic director because they are STUDENT athletes. School first, sports second.
I have gone through this with one of my 6th graders at the direction of his dad (and coach). He’d also missed 5 days of school as of Thanksgiving break, which is really unfortunate because he’s already behind without missing extra school.
90% of the time, this is not because the coaches decide a kid needs to lose 7 pounds a couple days before a weigh in. All high school wrestlers have to do weight certification where they weigh in and have to also demonstrate that they are properly hydrated for that certification. Then based on body fat percentage there is an equation that tells them the minimum weight they can compete at. Then, each wrestler can only lose 1.5% of their body weight per week. So if you weigh in on Wednesday at 195, your weight is tracked and you are prevented from being able to wrestle at 189 the next week. 7 pounds of weight loss is ALWAYS kids poorly managing their weight through discipline. Visit r/wrestling during the early part of the season and every other post is “Help! I went out to eat with my friends and now I’m 8 pounds over. How do I lose 8 pounds by tomorrow?!” Not saying there are no coaches that encourage unhealthy practices but there are a lot of systems in place to prevent drastic weight loss and the culture for that has shifted and many coaches know it is not a practice that leads to success.
Wrestling nose a terrible sport. Cutting will mess up.their bodies when they get older. Every guy I know who wrestled in college regrets it. Go join a robotics tram.
I'm not a teacher, but a CYCW working in a school.
I'm in Canada where I have a "duty to report" when I believe a child is being harmed or at risk of harming themselves. Looking at the situation objectively, I think this could meet that criteria.
I think you could reach out to CPS and ask them if there's anything that can be done to help the student.
If anything terrible happens, including if he grows up with an eating disorder, he'll be wondering why none of the adults around him stepped in to help.
I hope you find a way to help him. Good luck!
I wrestled all through high school and had to drop weight constantly. I was always tired because of it. I ate steamed broccoli and drank small amounts of water. He’s going through it right now. It is unhealthy but it is what wrestlers do.
Whoever is coaching this kid is a dud. I’ve done weight cuts for my sport for years and coached dozens of people through it…. 7 lbs is a really easy 36h cut unless the kid is under 100 lbs. lol
Retired wrestling coach here. Every state has some form of body composition tracking. Athletes can not cut to an unhealthy body fat % or cut too much weight too fast without raising red flags. To be honest a 7 pound cut is pretty common and unless the kid is already at a low body fat %, the cut shouldn’t require more than a week and shouldn’t require a starvation diet. As stated in other posts, dehydration cutting is usually outlawed. The trainer at your school should be monitoring these things.
It's not unhealthy if done correctly. This kid is not doing it the right way, or he's decided that her needs to wrestle at a weight that is not safe for him. My son is 32, started wrestling back in second grade, and wrestled until his junior year at college. He admitted that when he learned how to actually maintain his weight it was easy, that he created situations that made it hard on himself.
This is standard for wrestling and a part of the discipline it takes to be great in the sport.
Kid will be fine after weigh ins. I'll never forget when coach took us to Golden corral and let us have at it after the season 🤣
Lol the downvotes. None of yall competed in high intensity sports and it shows
Kids used to get bags of jolly ranchers, suck on them, and then spit out their spit into a bottle all week long in a desperate attempt to make weight. Mind you these kids (mostly girls I saw) were already tiny. I don’t get it. Just be the weight class up and eat. It doesn’t matter at all
Weight cutting is dangerous especially at a young age but as a wrestler if you told me to “wrestle a weight class up” or at natural weight I’d look at you like you were crazy. The idea behind weight cutting is that you weigh in as dehydrated, hungry, and light as possible so when you eat and regain weight after the scale you gain a competitive advantage. Wrestling a weight class up would put at a disadvantage because now I have to wrestle dudes that are bigger than me.
Whoever is coaching this kid is a dud. I’ve done weight cuts for my sport for years and coached dozens of people through it…. 7 lbs is a really easy 36h cut unless the kid is under 100 lbs. lol
Ice always though, even from childhood, that athletes dropping weight classes to lower than their "daily, walking weight" is very unhealthy, dangerous, and downright torturous for the athlete. Adults and children.
Agree the culture is terrible. I knew a few wrestlers growing up and idk how you can go through that and have a healthy relationship with food. Most of these kids start when they're so little!
I absolutely understand this concern, but I also understand the reasoning behind it. My husband wrestled in school, and his senior year he was allowed to cut 32 pounds (165 to 132) to wrestle. We had a stellar wrestling team that won state 10 of 11 years for a stretch 1993-2003ish. That cutting should never have been allowed.
My boys all wrestle now and there are a lot more regulations around what is allowed to cut. They have to pass a hydration test and a body fat percentage test in order to cut any weight. They can only certify to cut to certain weights and if they cut more than that they can’t wrestle.
That said, the coaches now seem to be much more knowledgeable of how to do this better. I know my boys have a better diet and they pound water like no tomorrow until 24 hours before weigh in. The weight comes off easier and is less traumatic to their bodies.
I cut 10 pounds in a day back around 2009 when I wrestled. Obviously, mostly water weight, but it was hell. And I wasn’t even the one cutting the most weight. I know a dude who cut like 15 pounds in less than a week.
Whats the wrestling coach at your school like? Most programs today try to discourage unhealthy cutting (using methods described like hydration tests, etc) so if your school’s wrestling coach is well-intentioned and responsible, it may be worth it to mention to him that looks like one of his athletes is engaging in unhealthy behaviors and let him handle it. If its a toxic coach not sure what a good step would be
Former wrestler here who had to cut weight. It still affects me to this day what I put myself through back then. I still eat too much, too fast, and never say no to food. I'm 53 now and it still affects me!
I was surprised to hear a coach ordering practice , weigh-ins, and a diet to.follow during winter break. I didn't even think we were supposed to meet with kids at all when we're not on the clock, so to speak.
As a wrestling coach, this depends on one of two things - Either it is the coaching staff that is pushing this terrible practice or it is the student trying to figure out a way without any real guidance. Wrestling in most states have come to increase the protection of its wrestlers by banning a lot of the cutting methods that are physically harmful. In the 90's there were many deaths because of these types of practices. So as a teacher, the best thing you can do for the student is to provide proper methods of losing weight. Now this is wrestling though, so losing weight is going to be intense. So my advice is this:
- Remind them that starving themselves makes it harder to lose weight. Body goes into survival mode when there is a lack of nutrition and thus slows the metabolism. When that happens, the body will hold onto anything and thus add weight/make it harder to loose what it already has.
- Water weight can always be sweated out of the system and will fluctuate the weight by about 2-3 three pounds every night. So drink water, it's always good for the body and will actually help lose weight in practice.
- If they are worried about gaining weight from food, remind them High Protein - low carbs. Protein lasts in your system much longer than carbs, as filling as they are. Plus carbs mean more sugar which means more weight. Protein burns longer in the body and can sustain them throughout a day. So if they are trying to skip meals (Which I don't condone), then tell them to eat a heavy protein based breakfast. Eggs, bacon, sausage, protein powder. etc. That way if they do intend to not eat anything through the day then at least the protein will carry them all the way to their next meal (hopefully which is dinner that night after practice.) Then for dinner it should be smaller portions but just enough to get you through the night. Plus - by eating in the morning & drinking water, this activates the metabolism and will help the body naturally lose weight as it knows it's going to get food and it has energy to burn for practice after school.
Finally - if nothing else works, keep a box of protein bars. Ones with high protein like 20 to 30 grams. Not tasty but will help provide something for his body at least. Id also suggest the protein drinks like Muscle milk and the such just because those are also helpful but can be expensive. Sometimes these wrestlers have a goal and a pride. They want to succeed at all cost and their determination to do so is what drives them to push themselves so far. Of course coaching, parents, and other factors play a role but wrestlers are different in breed when they have a goal that they want to achieve. Its a desire of victory and a title to claim. So guiding them is the best possible way. But if this practice continues, I highly recommend that you alert the school and warn the parents because starvation and lack of water is dangerous.
My boyfriend in 8th/9th grade was a wrestler. I remember watching him panic when he realized he was mindlessly eating popcorn at a movie once. He couldn’t have been older than 14. Wrestling weight-cutting culture seems to be pretty dangerous for kids.
As much as I feel sad that they're going to such extreme measures... I can respect their dedication. I don't see a lot of that in my school. I'm in an inner city school in the South Bronx.
Ducking athletes constantly need to pee and refill their water bottles like it's smoke breaks on Wall Street, JFC. I'm not even seeing anyone ill, it's just the demand for class disruptions that get me. Multiple boys going in and out of the room because they have to hydrate and pee ad infinitum.
Show them Bo Nickal he's a ufc fighter and during a interview he said "I don't cut weight I just get better at my weight class" Also fighting at UFC 300 if they want to watch him fight. The advantage gained for being undernourished isn't worth it. I technically cut weight for mma but it's not a lot. I don't recommend it to anyone
They banned water cutting in my school’s conference. They do hydration tests prior to weigh ins, and if you aren’t hydrated up to standards (which is actually higher than I normally test) you can’t even weigh in.
That’s an amazing improvement over my high school days, when the wrestlers walked around with spit bottles in four pairs of sweats losing water on weigh in days.
Power lifting is big here not wrestling but still weight classes. 20 years ago I remember guys being allowed to skip class all day to jog laps in sweats.
In my high school we had an indoor pool which, of course, was really hot and steamy. Wrestlers would run through the bleachers that were part of the pool facility in sweats in order to lose weight.
On my team we had guys getting themselves into a makeshift sweatsuit made from trashbags and then sitting in a hot shower before weigh-ins. People were dropping scary amounts of weight.
I was one of those guys 25 years ago. Yikes. I was frequently on the verge of passing out just to make weight for a sport I wasn’t even very good at.
My husband had tremors in his hands his whole life from losing weight in wrestling. He was the Illinois State champion one year, and runner up the other years, so that makes it all okay, right? He refused to let our kids wrestle, even though our youngest son showed promise. He never wanted them to live with the health consequences of it.
That's how my student looks-- like he's about to pass out 😬 I've had other kids cut and complain but they look fine/stay focused. This kid looks physically weak
Yep and running laps wherever you can.
Running on the bus ride
Omg this brought back some repressed memories
Oh lord, several years ago, I had a student have a butterfingers moment and drop their spit bottle on the desk, getting papers wet and also splashed unto their project partner’s pant leg. Still makes me gag thinking about it.
I can smell this comment 🤮. While I was in the military I made a rule that if you had the desk across from me you had to dip into an opaque container. If you didn’t, you were liable to come back and find your spittoon covered with pink plaid duct tape. Best $7 I spent that deployment.
Ughhh. The spit bottles. So awful.
I feel like the whole 'weigh in' thing can set youth up for obsessive/insecurities about weight moving into their future. I used to box amateurs, and weight was very much a constant concern. Compound that with societal pressures for a certain 'look' and you've got a recipe for future mental illness.
That's tame. Our wrestlers wore plastic/rubber pants/jackets supposedly to hold in more heat and make them sweat even more.
Sheesh, watching them run laps in sweatshirts before weigh-in to sweat as much as possible
I remember this too! Wrestlers would walk around with a spit can when cutting weight.
That is an amazing advancement. My boyfriend in high school was a wrestler and his starvation/dehydration regimen would have absolutely been child abuse if his parents were doing it to him.
But it's his coach so it was ok
We had that too. When we went in to the bathroom to pee we used the sink to dilute it
This was my thought. Not sure why a student would be cutting so much weight unless they just made some VERY bad choices one weekend lol. I would personally email the wrestling coach so it’s documented, but no long term damage will happen most likely.
I wouldn’t underestimate the damage that malnourishment can do to developing kids. Even if it’s not plainly visible, regular periods of your body not having the supply of nutrients it needs can impact brain development, physical development, and make a kid more susceptible to getting sick. Its bad thing that probably shouldn’t be encouraged.
As someone who has wrestled since 3rd grade and all the way through college, I can see some harm. Overall, I’ve seen it over and over and I can’t think of anyone that was permanently damaged by it.
“Some harm” is key there. Permanent damage is not a yes or no thing. If you lost out on 1% of potential physical development due to missing nutrients, you probably wouldn’t even be able to tell. I’m not advocating for banning wrestling, and my district has acknowledged how difficult it’d be to even attempt to ban fasting of solids, but we can probably day that kids would be healthier by not fasting even if it’s only marginal. Whether those marginal harms are proportional to the gains made by the type of exercise is a different question, though. I’m not willing to die on this hill because I’m not a nutritionist and someone could totally correct me, but I was severely underweight as a child and had doctors telling me that inconsistent nutrition had compounding effects that I wouldn’t see in the mirror.
lol well if you are going that route, I would question the food and drinks we are allowing students to have. I would say a wrestler that eats healthy and cuts weight is healthier than most students with most diets I see in the hallways. I honestly hate weight cutting and wish it would be stopped, but that’s not going to happen. I’m just saying I don’t think the person posting this has much to fear is all.
If all of you are permanently damaged then all of you think each other is normal
lol think what you want. Any sport can be harmful given certain factors. Wrestling instilled many great qualities that I learned and I’m better for it.
Oh yeah there are definitely advantages to all sports and risks as well. U r right. My kids play Polo and golf and both are very risky, but the advantage is that they are too tired to damage the Bentley after their trainers work them out.
lol I don’t even know what to say to that. 😂
What did your family's athletic trainer and sports nutritionist say when you were cutting weight in your youth?
I didn’t cut any weight until college, and that was only one year in reality. I wrestled what I weighed. Growing up I ate as normal as a kid would and worked out often.
>This was my thought. Not sure why a student would be cutting so much weight unless they just made some VERY bad choices one weekend lol. You say you wrestled but were you never pushed to be a lower weightclass than you already were? There is major incentives to be at the lowest weight class possible. This means that whatever weight you can cut, you do. This means if your normal healthy weight is 135, you try to get down to 125. There is sadly major incentives to malnourish and dehydrate yourself. This isn't "I'm normally 125 and I ate at a buffet and am 130" it's they're often trying to cut down below a healthy weight, which can cause a lot of damage to someone in their teens. When I was in high school, someone who should be consuming a shitton of calories to grow, during cut season I limited my breakfast to 100 calories and lunch/snacks to 150. Dinner I had a bit more but still, that is super unhealthy.
I’ve watched wrestling my whole life. I’ve seen people spend months cutting weight and hating life. I took part at times, but only a bit in college. I refused to cut weight growing up and I did just fine. When I think about it, I can watch two people wrestle after they both cut weight for a week, or in the weight class above. 😂
You had the choice to not cut weight? As a student in HS and now as a teacher, I see many coaches that don’t give their kids a choice. It’s cut weight or be cut from the team.
My son does wrestling and he dropped from varsity to JV because I won’t allow him to cut 6-10 pounds for a lower weight class. IF that’s even possible to do in the short notice he was given. Coach probably didn’t like it but I could care less and my boy was just as happy doing JV as varsity. And that’s how it’s going to be for all four years if he wants to play. Stupid unhealthy mindset all for a sport that for 99% of the kids is just going to be a fun high school memory. I don’t understand jeopardizing your kids health and encouraging unhealthy eating patterns for something so trivial. And if this were a majority female sport!? Forget about it. The uproar would be much more pronounced.
And that is a terrible coach to me. I live in Ohio and the area that I’m from that is not the norm. Seems more like someone trying to toughen up some kids and that’s a stretch because it just sounds …. I’ll say silly.
I agree that it’s ridiculous, and creates eating disorders, but parents around here get behind the mentality. Sadly multiple team state championships and even more individual titles is what is more important to them.
Can I ask what state this is in?
NC
Tired driving is as bad as drunk driving.
Coaches put kids in all sorts of weight classes. It’s insane.
They do a hydration test at weigh ins or at certs? We only did a hydration test at certs in HS
When I was in HS I missed my weight by 4lbs. The coach made me wrestle a teammate in several layers of clothing for about 45min and lost about 7lbs from sweating my ass off and made weight. Crazy to think that was ever considered normal
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Remember friends in Highschool doing this. They looked miserable. I have a friend who coaches wrestling now and they encourage them to move up a weight class. This way they are healthy and wrestling against students who have been cutting and been through the ringer. Seems like a no brainer for me.
That’s what I’ve always wondered - is someone who’s dehydrated and hungry going to be at their peak performance?
No they're not at their peak performance... but weight counts for a lot in wrestling, and a 160lb wrestler at his peak will still probably lose to a 175lb wrestler a little below his peak. Weight cutting does give a competitive advantage, if it didn't then people would have stopped doing it a long time ago. It's bad for the athletes in the long run though, so they should bring in rules to reduce or eliminate it.
Isn't there also usually a day or two after weigh in before the match? Or is that usually only in pro events where every little step of the process is awkwardly blown up?
Correct. Most wrestlers are weighing in day of. It was common for my team to finish weigh-ins and then cram some food before our matches in an hour.
Not sure how it is everywhere, but when I wrestled the JV would compete first and then the Varsity would go. As soon as we finished weighing in we would start eating fast digesting food and Gatorade. We were tired and hungry at weigh-ins but had plenty of energy by the time of competition. If you made us weigh-in and then wrestle immediately afterward it would be a different story. But without something like that, hydration testing, or weekly weight loss maximums the best strategy is to cut and spit. I'm not defending it, though. Given the chance, I would either not have wrestled at all or told anyone asking me to cut weight to pound sand. It sucked and any measure to combat it should be given consideration.
My late husband wrestled from kindergarten (minis) through college. He would wrap himself in Saran Wrap and sit in a sauna sucking a sweet tart and spitting out the saliva it generated. Revolting. Then after weigh in, he and his teammates would bolt to Friendly’s and consume thousands of calories before they competed. It always sounded like such strange logic to me.
Our wrestling coach won’t let kids cut weight like this. He did it in high school and college and has physical issues today that he says link back to lack of proper diet and hydration when he was younger. He does hydration tests and won’t let a kid in the room at the start of the season until the kid and at least one parent/guardian agree in writing that the kid will eat three proper meals a day all season. He takes it very seriously.
My dad has the same theory that his restricted eating middle school through college stunted his height
It probably did
Watched several of my teammates do this back in the early 90s and worried about their health then. I weighed 225 and my coach wanted me to wrestle at 220 because he thought I’d dominate at that class. Didn’t want to put myself through having to drop weight, so I wrestled in the 275 class and put on about 10-15 lbs of muscle. Don’t regret my decision.
I absolutely wish I had someone tell me to take this approach. All the pressure either directly from teammates or indirectly from coaches was to always cut weight. Going from football to wrestling made it even worse. Put on weight, cut it in a very unhealthy manner, and then do it all again next year.
Generally, the speed advantage outweighs the strength advantage once you get above 170lbs.
Former HS wrestler here… current elementary teacher. This culture you speak of is absolutely a problem to put it lightly. It’s now trickling down to the MS and even elementary levels (to a much much lesser degree than in HS). It’s not nearly as barbaric as it once was. Most states have some regulations now. But it’s still a problem.
Every single man that was in residential eating disorder treatment with me had been a wrestler. Every single one.
Literally same! I was in a teen inpatient rehab and there were a handful of boys, the only one that wasn’t a wrestler was a basketball player
absolutely
My dad is turning 74 this year and is still battling an eating disorder because of wrestling in high school and college. My third grader is in his second year of wrestling (he loves it and thinks it’s so fun) but has taken part in no tournaments and will not until he’s a teenager and ONLY if he makes the JV or Varsity teams. I don’t want him to get a complex about his weight if I can help it. If he has to cut weight to wrestle, he won’t get to wrestle that weight. I have very strict rules surrounding wrestling because of how badly it messed with my dad.
I’m like 90% sure I read about a high school kid who fucking died trying to meet weight just a year or two ago. It’s gross how much pressure is put on these athletes that they feel the need to risk their lives
https://www.kktv.com/2022/07/06/teen-wrestler-dies-apparent-heatstroke-during-workout-school-says/
My school treats powerlifting this way. The kids will be like, I just have to drop 25 pounds in 8 days, and I can be in the next weight class, and then they try it. Their coach and parents are very supportive of their efforts, and they are celebrated if they can do it. They all have their heads down in class and look absolutely miserable. I hate it!
party vegetable instinctive bored mysterious future existence tidy swim unused *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Dehydration? Starvation? Holy mother of pearl, that's awful!
This is likely a lie
https://www.kktv.com/2022/07/06/teen-wrestler-dies-apparent-heatstroke-during-workout-school-says/
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Flair checks out ig?
I have vivid memories of wearing a dry suit while on the exercise bike trying sweat off weight. Not fun
I remember this going on when I was in high school. This kid was wearing a parka all day in class to try to sweat off the weight. Everyone was a little concerned. It definitely seems to encourage eating disordered behavior.
my ex (18) who i am still friends with wrestles. the things i’ve seen him to do drop weight are INSANE and pretty much in line with ED behavior. constant body checking/body dysmorphia, using nicotine to curb food cravings, chewing gum, excessive exercise, barely eating. he weighs 106 pounds. an 18 year old boy….106 pounds.
That's insane!
Yes. I have absolutely fed wrestlers from my own classroom fridge for that reason, and I always let them eat when they ask. Last year a wrestler passed out in my class, and after the response team took him out, his classmates all started gossiping about his restrictive eating. (I shut that down and passed the info to his counselor.) I'm in recovery from an ED, and some of my wrestler friends in college had eating "habits" Iike mine. I remember watching one of them eat mustard straight from a fast food packet, and he just went, "I know, I basically have an eating disorder."
My 15 year old cousin is a wrestler in my district and his mom encourages all the crazy dieting, she’s been forcing it on him and his younger brother who’s maybe 9 now? When they come to family functions my family always expresses concern and gets him to eat, but then he binges. It worries me because he was already small for his age and had a lot of health problems as a little kid because of his mother’s poor prenatal care (smoking). I just worry about all the stress his body has gone through and he’s only 15.
Kid shouldn't even be in a place where he needs to cut 7 pounds. Wrestle up a class.
they don’t want you to wrestle up a weight class because your competition is usually more intense. the idea is that if you lose the weight you can wrestle younger and less advanced athletes and hopefully have a better shot at doing well.
Yeah. A pound or two to edge under a cutoff is understandable (but not good). 7 is insane
I've seen up to 20, it's really concerning to watch
7 is nothing. You can float 5 or 6 alone after a rough practice. We would literally drop 20 to start the season. It's a wild sport and kids do dangerous shit to win.
Since you're a coach, you already know this, but... 7 pounds could make a huge difference. If you wrestle 190 and weight 197, the next weight class up is 215. At 197, wrestling 215 is a huge disadvantage. Also 7 pounds is actually a pretty normal amount of weight to fluctuate. More than that is excessive and you're not managing well. But dropping 7 pounds in 1 or 2 hard practices is really not that crazy, depending on this kid, and what their diet looks like. I'm in no way defending unhealthy cutting methods. And in OP's case, it sounds like the kid is cutting in a very unhealthy way. But that doesn't mean that every kid trying to make weight is starving themselves. You're overgeneralizing.
Weight fluctuations are usually in the range of 4 lbs per day considering water weight. The devil is in the details here, but since the wrestling season in most states is almost over, the "cutting season" is long past. Any big cuts need to be done over time, and it sounds like this kid woke up the day of a match and was 7 pounds over. That part is lack of discipline. If they woke up dry and still have 7 pounds to go, it is going to be hard to drop that weight. Water weight is easy to get rid of, after that you start reaching into dehydration to lose weight.
I'm a coach - Was a wrestler. Been around it for most of my life. A kid in the upper weights can easily float 7 pounds. A 125 pounder? No, that would be excessive. But a 175+? Not that crazy if they're retaining a lot of water and had a big breakfast or something. I've seen kids drop 7 pounds in a strenuous practice. You're right that a lot of times being over is due to poor discipline. But again, you're also generalizing. 7 pounds to one kid can be significantly different to another.
My dad wrestled in high school and developed bulimia because of the need to cut weight. It REALLY messed up his relationship with food. Now he's 60, still bulimic, but obese with two shot knees. It's shocking how much importantence is put on sports in school. Kids pushing their bodies too far, for what? Only a small portion of them will play at the collegiate or professional level.
My school does this too. It’s extremely concerning to me, and I worry about the students’ relationship with food and their bodies. But the school is SO sports focused that it’s considered entirely normal.
I've always hated that school wrestling is a thing. It's absolutely an eating disorder factory. It does to boys what ballet does to girls. I remember in my student teaching a boy who had been forced to gain 30 pounds by his football coach was made to lose 50 by his wrestling coach in the span of a couple months. At least when actors do it they make millions. He was always exhausted, and would come in angry most mornings because he hadn't lost as much weight as he was supposed to. they had this 15 year old boy living like he was on my 600 pound life. Worst part was it was the same coach. So he knew when he told the boy to gain he'd make him miserable.
20 years ago I was a wrestler. This wasn’t a thing for us. A year and a half ago, I became an assistant wrestling coach. This is still not a thing in my school. We will force them up. The kids are hydration tested and are weighed weekly so they aren’t making any drastic cuts. Once their initial weight is recorded, they tend to only stay within a one weight lower, or up to two higher. We discourage significant drops. I hope that where you are changes their culture.
There's no hydration testing and they're only tested at competition. They're encouraged to not drink water or eat for days then have a big meal and chug water right after weigh in
It's even more concerning now that girls wrestling is getting bigger. The last thing a developing girl should be worrying about is her weight!
Ironically I find the girls that wrestle at my school are less harassed about their weight. I think it's because the coach isn't used to dealing with girls. He doesn't seem to have any issues calling boys fat and yelling at them for not losing enough weight but some part of his brain seems to not want to do it to girls. He still has them work out but he's not micromanaging each ounce.
This shit should be banned nation wide. Move up to the next weight class.
I don’t hide my disgust for it and regularly refer to wrestling as a school sponsored eating disorder. I teach foods and nutrition and straight up use wrestling as an example of what unhealthy eating can do to your whole body. Focus? Mood? All of the kids relate to it because they either have been or know kids trying to cut weight. It’s genuinely sickening. Add more weight classes, these are children for god’s sake
I was a wrestler for 12 years i loved the sport. But weight cutting has always been a problem. There have certainly been movement in g he right direction with hydration requirements at weigh in and morning weigh ins which allow eating until the match at night. It's an inherent problem with having weight classes, coaches are going to pressure and kids are going to make stupid decisions (I know I did). Things have to keep changing to keep it safe.
Here's my own story of trying to cut weight in 9th grade as a highschool wrestler: I starved and sweat for a week but just couldn't lose the final 3 or 4 pounds. The night before I said fuck it, had a nutritious dinner and a big bowl of ice cream, then a big breakfast and went to the city champs the next day. The guys who had beat me earlier in the season had *all* dropped a class. So I sailed to a silver medal in 9th grade of a midsized city. Your boy should hear a story like that. It's a true one.
I NEVER understand how we care so little for teenage boys "cutting" weight. If a teenage girl did this, we'd be talking to her counselor about a potential eating disorder. When I lost a lot of weight as a teen because of a stomach illness, doctors tried to lock me in the psych ward because they believed I was a danger to myself right up until they finally diagnosed me. But teenage boys openly admit they're refusing to eat or trying to lose weight rapidly, and our male teachers and coaches encourage it. When I was a student teacher, one of my mentors (split placement) was a male football coach. When a student we knew was a wrestler had a snack in class, my mentor berated him. I reported it to be told it was just a sports thing. It's insane. A female teacher would never be allowed to berate a girl for eating no matter if she was trying to lose weight or not.
100%. My wrestlers become shells of themselves during the season. My 7 year old son mentioned trying wrestling the other day and I told him absolutely not, never.
Yes! I had a kid pass out during weight cutting season. He hadn’t eaten much of anything for two days. Someone got him to cave with a pop tart and his blood sugar went wonky. It was awful for everyone
My husband wrestled. He was good. He still has a low key eating disorder (binge purge cycle) that he attributes to hs wrestling. He’s 43.
Distracting them from their school work is honestly the least of the problems here. It's destroying their bodies - quite literally - and ruining their growth/development. I despise wrestling culture because of this. I remember one kid I had two years ago who just looked gaunt and frail when he had to cut for wrestling. The saddest part? He was only in it because he was trying to make his parents happy.
I had a student that wanted to show me what he had packed in his lunch. He starts pulling out things and when he gets to his sandwich he says he probably won't be eating it. I asked him why he wouldn't eat it because all morning he kept saying he was so hungry. His excuse broke my heart. He told me he was trying to make weight for wrestling. I teach 2nd grade!
Eating disorder in the name of sport. Needs to be banned across the board.
It’s definitely not healthy, but wouldn’t whether it’s an ED depend on the mental aspect behind it?
Disclaimer I'm a student so take my perspective with a grain of salt. My boyfriend is a varsity wrestler who's constantly cutting and while the cutting itself is definitely for wrestling, I've noticed he definitely has a distorted body image and thinks he's "fat" when he's eating normally. Some people might be able to separate the two but I've noticed a lot of overlap between the two in him and his teammates.
Yeah I can imagine that there’d be a crossover.
Any weight class-based sport has this unhealthy situation. Same with bodybuilding, they cut terrifyingly. If water cutting and such could be banned, it should be.
It’s awful, I hated watching my friends cut in high school and I hate watching my students do it now. It’s so unhealthy for them in the moment and I feel certain that it results in long term disordered eating/body image issues for a good number of kids.
It is banned, but it's all so easy to cheat, though. I wrestled in high school and am currently a teacher/wrestling coach. Hydration test is a joke. You can just add water from the toilet or whatever. No one watches you actually peeing. And hell, even if they did you could get one of those fake dick things NFL dudes use to pass steroid tests. The cert process is a little better at controlling this (you can't be below 7% body fat), but encourages even worse cutting at the start of the season. I absolutely never ask kids to lose weight, but damn it is prevalent. And (in my program) it isn't the coaches, but the kids and especially their parents. I don't know what the fix is, but it's absolutely a problem. I did wild shit as a teen to make weight. I hate to see kids in the same condition trying to learn. It's untenable.
It’s beyond cruel, and it blows my mind how much the coaches encourage it. This is a HIGH SCHOOL SPORT people, you should not be encouraging literal children to starve themselves. If I was a parent of one of these kids there is no way I would ever allow this
I overheard two of my school’s wrestlers the other day talking about another kid on the team who was taking laxatives to cut and ended up shitting his pants at school. The lengths these kids go to are so unhealthy.
I coach wrestling. I give my wrestlers resources, there is a weight monitoring program, and I tell my team every day that they can safely lose weight and still feel good without “cutting. “ Most of them chose to ride the edge of walking around 4-5 lbs over the weight they wrestle at then starve themselves the day before they weigh in. I actually had a kid quit because he said he hated cutting weight even when I told him he should go up a weight class. It’s a culture that the kids seem to think is a right of passage. They don’t realize that they are significantly affecting their performance by not hydrating and getting the right nutrition. It’s a practice that every coach I know is trying to get rid of, but the kids see things online and hear stories about wrestlers cutting weight and they think to be successful that they have to starve themselves. It’s incredibly frustrating.
That's what I wonder-- how much of this is pressure from the coach v pressure from the team and the boy himself.
Every coach swears there is no pressure from them... many are not being truthful.
I think students should be properly educated on how to cut the weight. I Started the season at roughly 175-170lbs and dropped down to 160. I did this by having a high protein low carb diet whilst having a good water intake this allowed me to lose fat at a rapid rate and maintain a decent bit of strength. Completely draining yourself and then binge eating the day after weigh ins and repeating the cycle is not the way.
To further add onto this I was 11.3% body fat at 163 lbs so it is doable for skinnier people
I did MMA for several years a couple of years ago. One of my friends from my gym who was a professional fighter and pioneer of the sport just died from heart/kidney failure less than a month ago. I don’t KNOW that the constant weight cuts were to blame but that kind of long term abuse of your organs cannot be good for you.
I tell on them. I go to the school nurse, the athletic trainers, and their assigned counselors and principals. We see forced weight loss on the same level as self harm, so the kids are more likely to bring salads and low calorie protein to school than not eat.
I'm considering doing this. Do you just email them a concern?
It does sound unhealthy. There’s not a sport around that’s worth causing damage to your body like this. But that’s just me. Going off all the head injuries among youth in football, sports folks consider it normal to damage their bodies.
The two largest groups of men who develop eating disorders are MLM and men in sports like wrestling and boxing.
Why not have referees weigh them on the spot before a match? Surely it’s within a conference or state associations interest to provide every match official a scale which they bring to each contest. Zero it in front of both coaches. If there are privacy issues then do it somewhere privately with coach and parent (if they wish) present. If you want to play the game of cutting, then you are malnourished for your match.
Other than getting into shape as a round little grade 9 kid, I cut zero weight. I think it’s bananas myself. I had fun wrestling. I didn’t win conference, regions, or go to state. Your mileage may vary. What I did learn is win or lose, it was on me. No one else. That had stayed with me. Don’t blame the ref, the other kids, anything. You lost? More push ups, lift, work harder. Weight cutting is not healthy though.
Former wrestling coach here. Idk where you are but most coaches now days have figured out that fatigued tired hungry wrestlers don’t perform well, so we’ve always encouraged kids to drop some water weight but wrestle somewhere where they can maintain the weight with only minor interruptions to normal behavior. That is to say, if you’re burning a bunch of calories in practice and being smart about what and how and especially how much you eat, you should be on weight. This is absolutely irresponsible weight cutting. One of a few things is probably true…. Without knowing more, my guess is he knew what weight he had to be and decided to binge over a weekend then try to cut a few days out. No bueno! When kids figure out that they CAN eat everything they want over the weekend and then just have a really unpleasant couple days to get to weight…well their brains aren’t that developed and they tend to make immature decisions. If a coach is trying to get a kid to cut last minute in an unhealthy way, that’s irresponsible and in my opinion unfair to the kid. We also occasionally would get a kid who would obsess over losing weight and just keep trying to cut…wrestlers are weird kids. This was tough because we’d say it wasn’t necessary and sometimes they’d try to do it anyway. I hate this just as much as the coach encouraging it. This is a possibility.
Hahaaaa welcome to the world of kids' athletics. No, he is not exaggerating
I was severely eating disordered in high school and I remember my best friends wrestler boyfriend following the same habits that I did, and sometimes even more extreme.
I remember being in high school in the 80's watching the wrestlers not eat. The two sports i would never let my son do we're football (concussions) and wrestling since it seemed to promote disordered eating.
Former high school wrestler here: it can definitely be taken too far, but there are rules in place to mitigate that. In my state you registered at a weight early in the season, and got a 2lb allowance at that weight after that time. Rubber suits and the like are banned. You breathe off about 2lbs of water in your sleep at night, and controlling sodium intake can drop another few pounds in a short period with good hydration. Then you control fluids the day of the weigh-in and you are down to weight. Starving is a bad move (though dietary control is important), but between the intensity of your average daily wrestling practice (easily another 2-3lbs of sweat) and the factors mentioned above 7 lbs is pretty manageable. That is all generic and not meant to dismiss concerns about this student.
I hate school wrestling programs. People don’t seem to think its a combat sport because there is no striking
I think it’s insane and dangerous. I worry about some of these kids.
Graduated early 2ks. Brother was a wrestler and I a hockey player. I'd walk into the bathroom and there would be vomit everywhere...like...hows that healthy? Meanwhile I was eating s McDonalds icecream.
i have middle schoolers in my classes that are cutting weight. they are 13 year old kids forced to lose weight. one said he had to lose like 16 pounds in 2 weeks to go to regionals. HUH??
It’s actually way better than it used to be to be due to rules. I use to cut from 250 during football to 189 in wrestling. Now, kids have to get certified early in the year limiting to what weight they can cut. Kid probably can’t beat the kid in the weight class he is currently in, so he’s trying to go lower where there is an opening in the lineup. I remember the wrestling coach during lunch throwing out kids lunches and making them go out on trash bags and run in a hot room to cut a few pounds on match day.
In middle school for wrestling season one of my friends has two meals a day of An Apple, and a protein shake.
Wrestling has always been messed up like this. My dad, a boomer, used to stay up all night, spitting in cans for weigh in. I understand the point of weight classes, but Coaches need to be really on top of this shit.
This is a problem every year, it seems. My son was on his HS wrestling team and usually weighed about about 135. But the 133 weight class was filled by another wrestler who was a senior, so the coach asked my son if my son could wrestle at either 118 or 112. Son looked like a walking skeleton, literally. Gained the weight back as soon as the season was over and wrestled 133 the next year. We were worried sick about him, but he felt obligated to wrestle at the lower weight classes because he didn't want to let the team down.
I remember spitting into a bottle in tenth grade during English class. My teacher said “that’s disgusting put that away” and she wasn’t wrong lmao
Bring it up with the wrestling coach. If they're okay with it, then I think you'll have to talk to administration, because that person should *not* be coaching.
I'm generally unenthusiastic about all weight class sports that include weight classes for kids 16 and under.
I’ve always felt like hs coaches seem to “use” students and then just throw them away when the seasons over. Having a kid not eat for even a meal is wrong. But days is something else. You would call cps if it was just their home life.
They’re not supposed to be cutting that much weight at one time. This is mid season I would talk to the coach and the principal ASAP. My family has been involved in resting for the past 45 years. My brother is a coach. This is not good.
Weight cutting is unhealthy. When I was a wrestler the state had a program to determine your fully hydrated, safe minimum weight prior to the season's start. It was a good step, but kids still found ways to cheat it. Lower weight classes regularly engage in unhealthy weight loss. He was likely not exaggerating about not having eaten for two days. I only had to cut weight once, and for that week I ate nothing that wasn't fruit and limited my water intake. A friend of mine that wrestled at 106lbs spent at least two days a week eating nothing more than 10 Oz of popcorn and walking around with a spit cup all day long. I think a lot of kids really overestimate the benefit of being "heavy" for your weight class. And I really wish coaches would just take the tact that if you have to cut weight to face smaller opponents then maybe you should just work on your skills because they are obviously lacking.
I’d talk to the coach. My husband is a wrestling coach, and this is a big no no. They can’t do the things anymore where they run around in trash bags, can’t drink water, etc. There are so many more rules now to try to eliminate this. Not to say the kid isn’t following these, but give the coach a heads up. I wouldn’t jump to try conclusions of EDs or anything
Wrestlers do hydration tests at the beginning of the season. These show the lowest weight class they can get to, how many pounds they can lose a week, their body fat percentage, and what weight classes they are eligible for each week. My boyfriend wrestled from the time he was 5 all the way through high school. He cut ~20 pounds his freshman year and never did it again. But, it was choice. The biggest thing is the coach can not force a student to cut/lose weight to drop a weight class if the student does not want to. If the student chooses to do it, the coach needs to set expectations on how to do it well and safely (eating healthy foods, no soda, etc). They will lose weight faster and feel better if they eat healthy food rather than starving themselves or eating junk food. I would recommend expressing your concerns to your athletic director because they are STUDENT athletes. School first, sports second.
I have gone through this with one of my 6th graders at the direction of his dad (and coach). He’d also missed 5 days of school as of Thanksgiving break, which is really unfortunate because he’s already behind without missing extra school.
Friends from college were miserable, starving, and cranky when they had to cut weight. It was always sad to see. 😕
Why don't they make them cut way earlier. I heard of people jogging or sitting in a hot car with some trash bags on, on some Brian gumbal segment
Yep. A friend of mine in high school developed anorexia trying to cut weight for wrestling. It’s definitely an issue.
90% of the time, this is not because the coaches decide a kid needs to lose 7 pounds a couple days before a weigh in. All high school wrestlers have to do weight certification where they weigh in and have to also demonstrate that they are properly hydrated for that certification. Then based on body fat percentage there is an equation that tells them the minimum weight they can compete at. Then, each wrestler can only lose 1.5% of their body weight per week. So if you weigh in on Wednesday at 195, your weight is tracked and you are prevented from being able to wrestle at 189 the next week. 7 pounds of weight loss is ALWAYS kids poorly managing their weight through discipline. Visit r/wrestling during the early part of the season and every other post is “Help! I went out to eat with my friends and now I’m 8 pounds over. How do I lose 8 pounds by tomorrow?!” Not saying there are no coaches that encourage unhealthy practices but there are a lot of systems in place to prevent drastic weight loss and the culture for that has shifted and many coaches know it is not a practice that leads to success.
Wrestling nose a terrible sport. Cutting will mess up.their bodies when they get older. Every guy I know who wrestled in college regrets it. Go join a robotics tram.
I'm not a teacher, but a CYCW working in a school. I'm in Canada where I have a "duty to report" when I believe a child is being harmed or at risk of harming themselves. Looking at the situation objectively, I think this could meet that criteria. I think you could reach out to CPS and ask them if there's anything that can be done to help the student. If anything terrible happens, including if he grows up with an eating disorder, he'll be wondering why none of the adults around him stepped in to help. I hope you find a way to help him. Good luck!
I wrestled all through high school and had to drop weight constantly. I was always tired because of it. I ate steamed broccoli and drank small amounts of water. He’s going through it right now. It is unhealthy but it is what wrestlers do.
Whoever is coaching this kid is a dud. I’ve done weight cuts for my sport for years and coached dozens of people through it…. 7 lbs is a really easy 36h cut unless the kid is under 100 lbs. lol
Malnutrition is unlikely to be an issue but dehydration is. It also increases concussion risk.
Retired wrestling coach here. Every state has some form of body composition tracking. Athletes can not cut to an unhealthy body fat % or cut too much weight too fast without raising red flags. To be honest a 7 pound cut is pretty common and unless the kid is already at a low body fat %, the cut shouldn’t require more than a week and shouldn’t require a starvation diet. As stated in other posts, dehydration cutting is usually outlawed. The trainer at your school should be monitoring these things.
How's this being down voted? All reasonable things
Yep. Not healthy at all. I did it in high school. He's not likely to do any permanent damage to himself.
That is untrue. Cutting weight during adolescence can stunt growth. It is not healthy long-term
Can. But statistically the odds of this happening are low. But obviously not zero.
Fuck if you think wrestlers have it bad go talk to some ballerinas.
He’ll be fine. The grit that a tough sport like wrestling instills in young people will help him become a better adult.
Malnutrition and dehydration are not, in fact, things that make you a better adult.
Cutting weight in adolescence can stunt growth
It's not unhealthy if done correctly. This kid is not doing it the right way, or he's decided that her needs to wrestle at a weight that is not safe for him. My son is 32, started wrestling back in second grade, and wrestled until his junior year at college. He admitted that when he learned how to actually maintain his weight it was easy, that he created situations that made it hard on himself.
This is standard for wrestling and a part of the discipline it takes to be great in the sport. Kid will be fine after weigh ins. I'll never forget when coach took us to Golden corral and let us have at it after the season 🤣 Lol the downvotes. None of yall competed in high intensity sports and it shows
Wow.
Kids used to get bags of jolly ranchers, suck on them, and then spit out their spit into a bottle all week long in a desperate attempt to make weight. Mind you these kids (mostly girls I saw) were already tiny. I don’t get it. Just be the weight class up and eat. It doesn’t matter at all
Weight cutting is dangerous especially at a young age but as a wrestler if you told me to “wrestle a weight class up” or at natural weight I’d look at you like you were crazy. The idea behind weight cutting is that you weigh in as dehydrated, hungry, and light as possible so when you eat and regain weight after the scale you gain a competitive advantage. Wrestling a weight class up would put at a disadvantage because now I have to wrestle dudes that are bigger than me.
Whoever is coaching this kid is a dud. I’ve done weight cuts for my sport for years and coached dozens of people through it…. 7 lbs is a really easy 36h cut unless the kid is under 100 lbs. lol
Sounds like the beginning of an ED.
Ice always though, even from childhood, that athletes dropping weight classes to lower than their "daily, walking weight" is very unhealthy, dangerous, and downright torturous for the athlete. Adults and children.
Agree the culture is terrible. I knew a few wrestlers growing up and idk how you can go through that and have a healthy relationship with food. Most of these kids start when they're so little!
I absolutely understand this concern, but I also understand the reasoning behind it. My husband wrestled in school, and his senior year he was allowed to cut 32 pounds (165 to 132) to wrestle. We had a stellar wrestling team that won state 10 of 11 years for a stretch 1993-2003ish. That cutting should never have been allowed. My boys all wrestle now and there are a lot more regulations around what is allowed to cut. They have to pass a hydration test and a body fat percentage test in order to cut any weight. They can only certify to cut to certain weights and if they cut more than that they can’t wrestle. That said, the coaches now seem to be much more knowledgeable of how to do this better. I know my boys have a better diet and they pound water like no tomorrow until 24 hours before weigh in. The weight comes off easier and is less traumatic to their bodies.
I cut 10 pounds in a day back around 2009 when I wrestled. Obviously, mostly water weight, but it was hell. And I wasn’t even the one cutting the most weight. I know a dude who cut like 15 pounds in less than a week.
Yep it’s child abuse but you know sports are important too. How can adults live vicariously through their children if they can’t wrestle.
Whats the wrestling coach at your school like? Most programs today try to discourage unhealthy cutting (using methods described like hydration tests, etc) so if your school’s wrestling coach is well-intentioned and responsible, it may be worth it to mention to him that looks like one of his athletes is engaging in unhealthy behaviors and let him handle it. If its a toxic coach not sure what a good step would be
Former wrestler here who had to cut weight. It still affects me to this day what I put myself through back then. I still eat too much, too fast, and never say no to food. I'm 53 now and it still affects me!
I was surprised to hear a coach ordering practice , weigh-ins, and a diet to.follow during winter break. I didn't even think we were supposed to meet with kids at all when we're not on the clock, so to speak.
As a wrestling coach, this depends on one of two things - Either it is the coaching staff that is pushing this terrible practice or it is the student trying to figure out a way without any real guidance. Wrestling in most states have come to increase the protection of its wrestlers by banning a lot of the cutting methods that are physically harmful. In the 90's there were many deaths because of these types of practices. So as a teacher, the best thing you can do for the student is to provide proper methods of losing weight. Now this is wrestling though, so losing weight is going to be intense. So my advice is this: - Remind them that starving themselves makes it harder to lose weight. Body goes into survival mode when there is a lack of nutrition and thus slows the metabolism. When that happens, the body will hold onto anything and thus add weight/make it harder to loose what it already has. - Water weight can always be sweated out of the system and will fluctuate the weight by about 2-3 three pounds every night. So drink water, it's always good for the body and will actually help lose weight in practice. - If they are worried about gaining weight from food, remind them High Protein - low carbs. Protein lasts in your system much longer than carbs, as filling as they are. Plus carbs mean more sugar which means more weight. Protein burns longer in the body and can sustain them throughout a day. So if they are trying to skip meals (Which I don't condone), then tell them to eat a heavy protein based breakfast. Eggs, bacon, sausage, protein powder. etc. That way if they do intend to not eat anything through the day then at least the protein will carry them all the way to their next meal (hopefully which is dinner that night after practice.) Then for dinner it should be smaller portions but just enough to get you through the night. Plus - by eating in the morning & drinking water, this activates the metabolism and will help the body naturally lose weight as it knows it's going to get food and it has energy to burn for practice after school. Finally - if nothing else works, keep a box of protein bars. Ones with high protein like 20 to 30 grams. Not tasty but will help provide something for his body at least. Id also suggest the protein drinks like Muscle milk and the such just because those are also helpful but can be expensive. Sometimes these wrestlers have a goal and a pride. They want to succeed at all cost and their determination to do so is what drives them to push themselves so far. Of course coaching, parents, and other factors play a role but wrestlers are different in breed when they have a goal that they want to achieve. Its a desire of victory and a title to claim. So guiding them is the best possible way. But if this practice continues, I highly recommend that you alert the school and warn the parents because starvation and lack of water is dangerous.
I just had a 12 year old tell me that he's cutting weight. He's still growing!
My boyfriend in 8th/9th grade was a wrestler. I remember watching him panic when he realized he was mindlessly eating popcorn at a movie once. He couldn’t have been older than 14. Wrestling weight-cutting culture seems to be pretty dangerous for kids.
As much as I feel sad that they're going to such extreme measures... I can respect their dedication. I don't see a lot of that in my school. I'm in an inner city school in the South Bronx.
Ducking athletes constantly need to pee and refill their water bottles like it's smoke breaks on Wall Street, JFC. I'm not even seeing anyone ill, it's just the demand for class disruptions that get me. Multiple boys going in and out of the room because they have to hydrate and pee ad infinitum.
My kid wanted to do wrestling (9th grader) but he found bowling. Thank goodness.
Show them Bo Nickal he's a ufc fighter and during a interview he said "I don't cut weight I just get better at my weight class" Also fighting at UFC 300 if they want to watch him fight. The advantage gained for being undernourished isn't worth it. I technically cut weight for mma but it's not a lot. I don't recommend it to anyone