Table 1 Examples of forum comments for the theme "Is there a problem?"

1a. Yes, the problem exists

I've visited numerous climbing crags all over Europe and everywhere I notice girls looking sick due to low weight and skipping meals before and after a hard climb. Perhaps some of the people commenting here see this as the standard build for climbers, so that they don't even think of them as being anorexic. They would most likely consider me fat. I believe many people aren't aware of anorexia and how risky it is.

Me and my friend are actually pretty appalled by the recent metamorphosis of certain elite climbers, in the [two specific nations] teams in particular. This wouldn't be such a major problem if there were systematic attempts to detect this at the professional level (such as BMI limits or blood sampling). Since there aren't, I'm just wondering “why the hell is no one commenting on the fact that these climbers went from healthy looking to skeletons in just a year?”

I've belonged to several different athletic communities, and I'd say that weight obsession is in fact more common among climbers. This typically leads to unhealthy and potentially hazardous lifestyle changes that might not even bring about any real benefits.

1b. Nah, it's not that big a deal

Do some climbers obsess about weight in an unhealthy way? Sure. Do some climbers even try to become underweight in order to boost performance? Sure. Still, if you add these two groups together, they wouldn't even make up ten percent of the climbing community.

Where can you find all of those "anorectic" climbers? I never run into them. If you truly were anorectic, you couldn't even muster the strength to climb [an easy route] and performing at pro level would be unthinkable. People who are skinny will always exist, because of genetics and healthy habits I suppose

A lot of climbers put more energy into warning about weight obsession than into just discussing what is actually optimal for performance. To perform at peak level, you need to adhere to some unhealthy habits whether you like it or not and that's the same in all sports. Just being honest about that and not treating people like they're children would be nice. Let us decide for ourselves what we do with the information.

1c. Disordered eating was more common in the past

The whole idea that eating cauliflower will make you climb harder is an 80s thing. It only makes you sound old and out of touch when you say shit like that.

Eating disorders aren't fashionable anymore. Even though climbers' bodies differ a lot (for example, compare [two elite climbers]), modern professional climbers are usually bulkier, have more muscles, and look far less unhealthy. It seems to me that "athletic" has replaced "famine-victim skinny". Still, climbers are better now than ever.

There used to be a rumour in the early 1980s that a top UK climber had anorexia. People were saying that he was so weak from undernourishment that he actually had to be carried to the climbing crag. In those days, climbing was more about endurance than now.