Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams

[QuietColours]

She never mentions Dobson and does say her parents were into Dr. Spock; also that her father counseled for family beds and against corporal punishment in his practice. (For the question on what kind of doctor he was, she said he did an endocrinology stint and then later that he opened a pediatric practice--no detail if it was general pediatrics or also endocrinology.) The threat of the belt was so frightening partially because he'd never threatened her with violence before.

My impression is that he was a very controlling person who always had to be right and was perfectly fine with humiliating someone else to prove that he was better than them, but not that he was someone who offered his family serious violence. I wouldn't be shocked if there were some slaps or being grabbed so hard it left marks that she didn't mention, but according to the book the kids were definitely not regularly spanked or beaten.

The family is Jewish.

Edit: The endocrinology stint was at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, so he was always focused on pediatrics, whether or not he continued with the endocrinology specialization

 

[Kittentoes]

There was a whole atmosphere of him though. He had tendrils out everywhere. He was an incredibly powerful activist, and broadcast all over. He influenced a lot of public policy.
My public school still had corporal punishment when I attended. Private school too.
In retrospect, I do see why it is so very hard for Gen X to speak up, and how some of this truly insidious abuse could just... flourish.

 

[Puffin]

There was a whole atmosphere of him though. He had tendrils out everywhere. He was an incredibly powerful activist, and broadcast all over. He influenced a lot of public policy.
My public school still had corporal punishment when I attended. Private school too.
In retrospect, I do see why it is so very hard for Gen X to speak up, and how some of this truly insidious abuse could just... flourish.

IIRC Dobson was also a paediatrician in California - he was a professor at University of Southern California

But you are correct that he had tendrils everywhere in "family values" lobbying organizations and think tanks such as Focus on the Family, the Family Policy Alliance, the James Dobson Family Institute etc etc

 

[QuietColours]

Chapter 6

• Parkettes
  • As Jen's intensity amplified, so did her mother's commitment to enabling her success. She completely dedicated her time to securing the best coaching; chauffeuring Jen to workouts, ballet, and choreographers; and doing anything to create the circumstances for success
  • Attended a summer camp at Parkettes, a national training center with many elites and former Olympians, owned by Bill and Donna Strauss. They had had Gigi Ambandos, Heidi Anderson, and Gina Stallone as National and World Championship members, and they had Cindy Rosenberry and Nicole Kushner, ten year olds who were training for elite. They didn't compete lower ranked gymnasts–they trained without competing until they were ready to hit the elite scene
  • Parkettes learned to be competitors not by competing, but by training so hard they didn't know how to do anything but succeed
  • Parkettes team girls did exhibitions at the camp. They did double backs and triple twists on floor, BHS and flipping series on beam, double back dismounts off bars
  • Patrick, the assistant coach, taught the youngest girls, Cindy and Nicole. Cindy had curly golden pigtails like Cindy Brady, Nicole had a glamorous long, straight ponytail and olive skin like a little Cher
  • "Patrick admired them with an obsessive bent, drove them with an unyeilding ardor. He shrieked obscenities when they failed to perform, slapping their bare legs if they paused before attacking a skill. He also hugged them with a lingering, unabashed indulgence."
  • Patrick taught Jen's group during the camp. She wanted to impress him, but she feared him. Unlike Marty, he wasn't patient with tentativeness. So here she was without trepidation. Concerns about danger were nothing compared to dread of disappointing Patrick. While Rich was often frustrated with her, he didn't have Patrick's vehemence.
• University of Pennsylvania
  • Mother employed a dance coach to hone beam and floor routines. Janet Cantwell was a former elite and national team member in the late 60s and early 70s, who now coached at the University of Pennsylvania. They weren't a very good gymnastics team–at 10, Jen was better than all of them
  • The gym was old and run down with shiny, slippery wooden beams and bars, the floor wasn't sprung.
  • Went there twice a week for special gymnastics dance instruction. Taught her to bend her knees to bring her center of gravity closer to the beam, to make it easier to stay on, how to finish moves with grace, poise, flexibility, amplitude, and extension. Had Jen overextend her legs so there could be no question they were straight. Focuses on details that set regular girls apart from champions
  • Told her mother about another gym in Mount Laurel, New Jersey coached by Lois Musgrave, known for being kind but tough. She had two elites already, Suzie and Donna, and Janet suggested she could also train Jen
  • Janet wasn't as mean as Patrick, but Jen was afraid of her–her stern glare, her silence, and her obvious disappoint in mistakes inspired fear of letting her down. She believed if she gave into Janet's instruction completely, she would not disappoint her or her mom. Ignored her fears, her falls, her bruises and aches and pains and kept going. She would not find out what happened if she got angry.
  • It was also fear of her own disappointment
  • Between workout with Janet and workout back in Cherry Hill, her mother and Janet colluded as to what the next step would be, and how to transition her to Lois
  • Jen changed in the locker room, where adult women were also changing after swimming. Jiggly legs with varicose veins terrified her, and she wondered why they bothered weighing themselves–they were fat, they knew it, and the number wouldn't change that. She was relieved to go back to her mother and Janet and the world of clothed thin people
• The Best Little Girl in the World
  • Her favorite book at this time was The Best Little Girl in the World, a novel about young Kessa, a ballerina with a dangerous obsession to be thin. She purged, starved, and implemented all sorts of tactics to maintain a perfectly skeletal physic. It fascinated Jen, who was aware she needed to keep it a secret from her mother so she wouldn't ask questions
  • Jen underlined passages and folded page corners highlighting the paragraphs of self-loathing Kessa battled when she felt she didn't measure up to the other girls in her ballet class. She was afraid her mother would see it and pull back on the extra instruction, that her support could be interpreted as pressure by a child, and make Jen try life as a normal kid
  • But mostly she didn't want to worry her. She was afraid she would discover the astrisks in the page margins next to Kessa's tips on starving and purging (eat one pea at a time, use a toothbrush on the back of the throat)
  • Felt about this book like she'd later feel about Judy Blume's Forever.
  • She figured weight loss and starvation would be required to build on her successes. Regionals was one thing, but the girls on television all had perfectly carved bodies. She knew Kessa's anorexia wasn't for her yet, but someday

 

[QuietColours]

I also went and read "The Best Little Girl in the World." It reads like someone took the checklist of what makes someone anorexic as understood in the 70s, how anorexics reduce weight, and what therapy for anorexia looks like (with heavy emphasis on how unsuccessful it is and the 25% mortality rate of the condition, although this story has a happy ending). There was a ton of focus on how being sick made everyone care about the protagonist and got their lives to revolve around her, where previously she was the good, ignored, easy child. I'm not remotely surprised Jen found the book addicting, and it really is a "How to be anorexic" guidebook.

In terms of a story, it's not bad but it's very flat--it really feels like it was written from a checklist. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who has any kind of struggles with disordered eating--it's very descriptive, with lots of techniques, different criteria you can measure your body on, and a lot of numbers. Ultimately, there's better YA eating disorder fiction out there these days, but I suspect this was one of the most complete and researched books at the time.