I brought in my “pro,” who is a clinical psychologist specializing in athletes with eating disorders. Here is my friend’s response…
“The point is that this is a dangerous trend in the sport of cycling and other sports as well, a trend with health implications that are clearly known in the study of anorexia and other eating disorders. And, yes, anorexics continue to function all the while their bodies break down irreparably. None of this should be taken lightly just because there is a supposed marker of when weight loss has gone too far (i.e., suffering performance). And we are talking about 18-20 year olds here as well, not independently functioning adults.
What makes extreme weight loss such a concern is that these health effects are very real and sometimes hard to detect by a medical team until the weight loss has gone too far. Furthermore, some research in the area of anorexia suggests that there may be something about these individuals on a biological level that allows them to function relatively normally at extremely low levels of weight. So yes, the top level performance of these individuals will suffer - but they still may be out there on the bike racing endangering their health.
Lastly, what should be more of a concern is the misperception held in many sports that weight loss = performance enhancement. This type of thinking is what encourages unhealthy weight loss methods and creates an environment where a dedicated athlete turns to desperate dieting (or other extreme measures - like taking weight loss drugs) to improve their performance.
So an athlete who loses large amounts of weight is definitely different from the runway model in that his/her ultimate goal is improved performance (not necessarily aesthetics), but the disorder or the medical condition or the mental condition of the individual is still the same. And the majority of individuals out there racing do not have doctors closely monitoring their health or understand that weight loss is NOT a direct link to improved performance, which makes the encouragement of weight loss by cycling peers, coaches, or the individual that much more risky.”
And I add… On the other hand, just like they had doctors helping them dope with chemicals, they now have doctors helping them destroy their bodies through weight loss.