Nov. 7, 2019 - At 17, Mary Cain was already a record-breaking phenom: the fastest girl in a generation, and the youngest American track and field athlete to make a World Championships team. In 2013, she was signed by the best track team in the world, Nike’s Oregon Project, run by its star coach Alberto Salazar.

Then everything collapsed. Her fall was just as spectacular as her rise, and she shares that story for the first time in the Video Op-Ed above.

Instead of becoming a symbol of girls’ unlimited potential in sports, Cain became yet another standout young athlete who got beaten down by a win-at-all-costs culture. Girls like Cain become damaged goods and fade away. We rarely hear what happened to them. We move on.
 
The problem is so common it affected the only other female athlete featured in the last Nike video ad Cain appeared in, the figure skater Gracie Gold. When the ad came out in 2014, Gold, like Cain, was a prodigy considered talented enough to win a gold medal at the next Olympics. And, like Cain, Gold got caught in a system where she was compelled to become thinner and thinner. Gold developed disordered eating to the point of imagining taking her life.

Nike has come under fire in recent months for doping charges involving Salazar. He is now banned from the sport for four years, and his elite Nike team has been dismantled. In October, Nike’s chief executive resigned. (In an email, Salazar denied many of Cain’s claims, and said he had supported her health and welfare. Nike did not respond to a request for comment.)

Read the full article here.

'You are what you eat' isn't just an old saying. "...a growing body of research over the past decade shows that a healthy diet—high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish and unprocessed lean red meat—can prevent depression. And an unhealthy diet—high in processed and refined foods—increases the risk for the disease in everyone, including children and teens.

Read the full article here. 

Emma joins MYM with an abundance of experience in the non-profit sector as a social justice organizer.

She is currently the Site Coordinator for River Valley Counseling Center’s School-Based Therapy program in Chicopee, MA. She enjoys combining her clinical expertise with her social justice values, and has led workshops on emotional well-being and healing in social justice movements.

Emma resides in Western, MA and presents to parents, teachers, school personnel, and community members to provide mental health education. Welcome Emma! #JustTalkAboutIt

"Nearly a quarter of college students were diagnosed with or treated for anxiety problems in the past year, and 20% were diagnosed with or treated for depression, according to a spring survey of nearly 68,000 students by the American College Health Association. That is up from about 10% each for anxiety and depression in 2008...The rise is colliding with the increasing popularity of studying abroad: More than 330,000 U.S. students studied abroad in 2016-17, up from about 240,000 10 years earlier, according to the Institute of International Education."

#1 - re-read that first sentence about the statistics, and make sure you're talking to your college students about their mental health, and let them know that if they're struggling, they are far, far from alone. Encourage others to have these conversations as well.

#2 - this article provides great news about what some colleges/universities and study abroad management companies are doing to support their students. It's helpful guide on what to consider, how to plan, and what questions to ask of the program before and during the experience.

Read the full article here.