Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters is a 1995 nonfiction book by San Francisco Chronicle sports writer Joan Ryan detailing the difficult training regimens endured by young women in competitive sports such as gymnastics and ice skating …
Ryan’s material was largely derived from personal interviews with nearly 100 former gymnasts and figure skaters as well as trainers, sports psychologists, physiologists and other experts, focusing on the physical and emotional hardships young women endured …
While it was noted that Ryan presented a relatively one-sided, bleak view of the sport, ignoring successes like Mary Lou Retton, and also appeared to save particular vitriol for Bela Karolyi, Ryan’s general points have some support by medical experts, as in the New England Journal of Medicine’s 1996 report that described emotional and physical harm suffered by elite female gymnasts. …
I recall the media hyperbole well.
Friends called asking whether they should withdraw their daughters from Recreational Gymnastics.
That book and the 2003 CNN documentary about Parkettes — Achieving the Perfect 10 — stirred a lot of controversy and debate amongst gymnastics coaches.
Many, including me, felt both exaggerated some problems, ignoring the many benefits of elite sport training.
I found nothing inaccurate in Joan Ryan’s book, much as I tried. She’s a skilled and careful writer. Yet the message received by the general public was skewed.
“The essence of lying is in deception, not in words. A lie may be told by silence, by equivocation, by the accent on a syllable, by a glance of the eye attaching a peculiar significance to a sentence. All these kinds of lies are worse and baser by many degrees than a lie plainly worded. No form of blinded conscience is so far sunk as that which comforts itself for having deceived because the deception was by gesture or silence, instead of utterance.”
- John Ruskin
Fact is, gymnasts, even Elite gymnasts, are disproportionately healthy (overall) and successful in life.
Compare female gymnasts with their same age non-gymnast peers. At all ages.
Joan Ryan exaggerated the risk of eating disorders, in my opinion. To sell books.
Crotch shot on the cover. Surprise. Surprise. That’s a tell that that publisher is more interested in sales than accuracy.
She didn’t interview Rhythmic gymnasts about disordered eating. That book wouldn’t sell.
Ryan did not exaggerate, however, the risk of psychological abuse by elite coaches. In the era of Steve Nunno and Bela Karolyi, American coaches were too severe. Ryan’s book may have had some real impact in improving the gym culture.
Gymnastics Canada, for example, added an ethics module to all our coach education courses. Coaching ethics are far better now than they were in the early 1990s.
In 2013, I’ve got mixed feelings about Little Girls in Pretty Boxes.
Joan Ryan was interviewed in this week’s episode of GymCastic. I didn’t learn anything new from the author. But the podcast commentary was interesting.
GymCastic has a number of good links on that post including part of an Oprah episode: Kathy Johnson, Betty Okino, Kristie Phillips and parents of Julissa Gomez and Christy Henrich with Joan Ryan.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
14 comments ↓
To the credit of all coaches now involved in the sport, gymnastics coaching is more about coaching the athlete as a whole person, fostering a positive but ambitious working environment. I’m sure there are still quite a few coaches who still use intimidation as a coaching method, but as a whole, we are shifting away from this.
That book was written over 15 years ago.
If you agree that the risk of psychological abuse was not exaggerated for the time period and the use of belittling, fear and intimidation was quite common for elite gymnastics, then I dont see how you can say that the risk of disordered eating was hype.
I know this is a massive generalisation, but Elite gymnasts are usually perfectionists with a type A personality. They are hard enough on themselves as it is…
Throw in an overly authoritarian coach who takes control over every single aspect of the athlete’s training, criticizes the athletes best efforts, as well as weekly weigh-ins in front of others, and the ideology that “fat girls dont fly”
If there is low self esteem, all it takes is one comment to fester in a teenagers brain & be blown out of proportion.
if psychological abuse is present there will ALWAYS be an increased risk of self harm.
Well said. I agree coaches may be moving away from intimidation as a coaching method, but, something more hurtfull can be what is not said. Clip from John Ruskin (Above):
“The essence of lying is in deception, not in words. A lie may be told by silence, by equivocation, by the accent on a syllable, by a glance of the eye attaching a peculiar significance to a sentence. All these kinds of lies are worse and baser by many degrees than a lie plainly worded. No form of blinded conscience is so far sunk as that which comforts itself for having deceived because the deception was by gesture or silence, instead of utterance.”
You singled out Steve Nunno…care to elaborate? (I’m not saying I disagree, I just would like to hear someone’s take on his methods/personality).
I did only one international trip with Steve Nunno. But that was enough.
It was … BAD.
I was embarrassed for the entire U.S. delegation.
Just FYI the cover you have on the web site is from the reprint of the book from 1997 I think. The cover from the first printing didnt have a crotch shot, just a young gymnast in a floor pose.
Also the book did tent to focus on the “Dark time” in usa gymnastics from 84-94
This was the first gym book I ever got my hands on, and I really remember what an eye-opener it was! I was only a kid myself, but I remember not being able to find any similarities between the coaches in that book and my own gym coaches… and what a relief that was. Reading Moceanu’s book last year brought back memories of what I had already read about Bela in LGIPB. Fortunately, I do think we’ve come a long way in terms of how the children in this sport are treated these days, but it would be incredibly naive to think some elite gymnasts and skaters don’t still suffer under similar regimes today. It was perhaps saddest to read of those kids who were berated in the gym or rink all day, then returned home to CRAPPY parents as well – who knew full well what was going down and supported it. To feel as though you have no escape from that kind of high-pressure environment must have been devastating.
Does Bela karolyi have any involvement with coaching the national team now? As in, is he in the gym when the team or tops teams are there on camp, or does he have nothing to do with coaching the sport now? I know he runs summer camps…
he dosent really coach at the summer camps. He takes care of the ranch
Bela was in the training gym with the US team in London, although I didn’t see him actually coaching.
You are in complete denial if you think coaching now a days is all about fostering a positive anything.
It is about success.
Valeri Liukin is a tyrant. Look what he did to Worford (sp) only a year or so ago.
Never mind American coaches, think about how abusive Russian / Chinese / Romanian coaches can be.
Not denying that there is still poor coaching methods around, but there are quite a few GREAT coaches- you can tell MLT loves her girls and treats them with nothing but respect. Tony retrosi, brestyan, Blanton, teyadora, and of course chow! Even though geddert can come across with an ego and probably says things he shouldnt to the media, there is no doubt he cares about all his gymnasts. His kids get his humor. All these coaches have reached the top without abuse. I have no doubt there have been quite a few arguments and stern words and ultimatums from time to time, but at the elite level, that’s expected when you spend so much time working with a teenager!
I don’t know if I would stick Brestyan in that mix. Sure, he treats his talented gymnasts well. He especially favors those that he thinks will make it very far. But he does not believe in fostering every child’s dreams, I can assure you that. (personal experience) MLT has had some nasty accusations thrown her way – and if they are only half true then hey, she’s not a perfect coach and neither are any of us.
I think its hard to change the mindset of many coaches that come from the ussr/rom/chn because for them it was all about getting high level gymnasts to the euro/worlds/olympics. There is no NCAA in these countries
I agree, it must be culture shock to not just take the most talented kids and move on with those ones. In many cases, it was always the gymnasts whose coaches believed little in them in the begninning that became the stars, though (Shushonova and Huilan come to mind).
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