Nutrition Case Study

Your best friend Sophie is a competitive gymnast and trains at least three hours a day, six days a week, for as long as you can remember. She does great in school and gets straight A’s on her report cards. You usually tell each other everything, but lately she is always moody, irritable and hard to talk to. Her competitive gymnastics training has led her to attempt eating healthy but she has always been a picky eater and never liked vegetables, and refused to eat butter or ice cream. Recently Sophie has realized that she can’t train as hard as she used to because her muscles have been hurting her. Her usally on-point balance has been slacking lately as she has stumbled in the school hallways and hasn’t been able to land any of her cartwheels. At first she thought that her loss of balance and muscle weakness was because of her rigorous training schedule, but even after cutting down on training to only two hours a day, five days a week, Sophie still feels the same. Then you notice that she has some cuts on her legs and when you bring them up, Sophie gets annoyed and says that they are just from shaving. You have seen them for weeks and know that they aren’t healing like they should. You and Sophie haven’t hung out in a while and whenever you suggest plans for the weekend she says she is always sore, tired and in a bad mood. After hearing her say this to you for the third week in a row you become concerned. You aren’t the only one who is starting to notice though, Sophie’s family sees that something is wrong because her grades are starting to slip and she talks about not wanting to continue gymnastics in college. Anybody who is close with Sophie knows that something is wrong with the straight A, gymnastics loving teenager. You miss hanging out with your best friend and are determined to figure out why Sophie is acting the way she