"I noticed my pants were falling down": Alba Orois's most honest witness

BarcelonaEating disorders are increasingly common in today's society, especially among elite athletes. Alba Orois, a player for Unicaja, has decided to use her personal experience to teach others. The Catalan player discovered the problem while playing at the University of Maine. "When I went to the United States, it was the first time I'd ever left home. Everything was going well in terms of my sport, but I noticed that something wasn't right. I was constantly calling my parents, my family, and I remember it like it was yesterday. I was talking to my mother, and she asked me if I was okay because she saw that my face looked terrible. After hanging up, I grabbed some pants, and when I put them on, they fell down. That's when I started to think that something wasn't right. I began to notice small things I was doing, and I realized that many of them weren't normal," she says.

"At that time, I didn't ask for much help because I didn't know if it was serious. In the United States, we were weighed every week. I started noticing that I was losing weight, and that was another turning point. I had a very strong mental decline, and we started looking into the possibility of returning. When I received an offer from Joventut Badalona, ​​it was the perfect excuse. I really wanted to be home because I wasn't feeling well," explains Orois, who currently competes in the Women's Challenge League, the second tier of Spanish basketball.

Orois sought help from specialists. "We looked for day hospitals, centers specializing in eating disorders, and consulted a psychologist who recommended I take a temporary break. At first, I wasn't sure because basketball was what truly fulfilled me, but there came a point when my boss told me I couldn't take it anymore, that I needed to focus on myself, that I wasn't doing well. I didn't want to accept it, but the specialists advised me to leave my career. I had to take a break because I couldn't go on like that," he admits.

"When you're going through something like this, there are comments that aren't helpful and can really affect you. People do it unconsciously, but those who are going through a disorder take it to a place that isn't the healthiest," warns the point guard. Orois wants her case to serve as an educational tool about eating disorders. "There are many people going through something similar and they aren't even aware of it. It's very important to start reflecting and not leave things to chance. There are many people who are very attached to the illness and don't want to acknowledge that they want to recover. The opposite happened to me. When I reached a point in my life where I was very unwell, I realized that I needed to make a change and recover," she adds.

"It's a habit"

Elite athletes are even more vulnerable than the rest of society. "We think it's normal to want to take better care of ourselves, but we must monitor every detail because some behaviors are unhealthy. I want to share my story so that if anyone identifies with it, they can take action. The sooner a problem like this is detected, the sooner it will be overcome. The longer it goes on, the harder it will be to overcome, because it eventually becomes a habit," she summarizes.

Ari Magriñá, a sports nutritionist, played alongside Orois and is familiar with his case. "There are several warning signs. One is an obsession with eating very well, even excessively clean. If you have difficulty eating in public and isolate yourself, that could also be a symptom. Another is weight. Some teams use weight as a control measure, and this increases the risk of these illnesses. Believing that the less you weigh, the better your performance will be is a mistake. When players live away from their family environment, the risk is even greater," he states.