Human stories are a powerful force in influencing the way we see the world and how we can expand or shift our perspective on any given subject matter. Rosalie Fish, a collegiate athlete and activist, has just that- an impactful story as a Native American distance runner who has used her sport to enact social change. Listen in as Kara Bazzi, LMFT, Opal’s Co-Founder and Clinical Director, and Rosalie talk about how Rosalie’s cultural identity has shaped her experiences as an athlete- from advocacy work with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, to how her cultural heritage impacts her relationship to food and mental health as an athlete.
Find Rosalie @rosaliefishx
Missing and Murdered Indigenious Women
Connect with Opal:
Thank you to our team…
Editing by David Bazzi
Music by Aaron Davidson: https://soundcloud.com/diet75/
Sound engineering by Ayesha Ubayatilaka at Jack Straw Studios
Transcription by Rev.com
Kara Bazzi (00:07):
Hello and welcome to the Appetite, a podcast brought to you by Opal Food and Body Wisdom, an eating disorder treatment clinic in Seattle, Washington. The appetite is a podcast about all things food, body movement, and mental health. I’m Kara Bozzi, co-founder and clinical director, and the director of the Exercise and Sport Program at Opal, as well as your host for today. On today’s episode, I’ll be having a discussion with Rosalie Fish, a collegiate runner and activist. I was formally introduced to Rosalie about a year ago when she did a training for our Opal staff, and I left that meeting feeling energized and inspired by learning from her and her story. One that opened my perspective even more with how sport can create social change and how culture can deeply impact one’s orientation to sport. I look forward to our conversation today and the ways we all are going to learn from her as well. So welcome Rosalie.
Rosalie Fish (01:00):
Thank you.
Kara Bazzi (01:02):
So I would love to start by having you share your story about running and how that love for running began and sort of your story until this point.
Rosalie Fish (01:11):
So I started running in middle school and high school age. It was something that at first I did to have fun with my friends, to connect with my mind and body, and over time it started to really resonate with my mental health. I had a pretty rough childhood growing up. There was domestic violence in my home, and unfortunately tribal communities are highly under-resourced. Growing up on the Muckleshoot reservation, I was stripped from a lot of mental healthcare, physical healthcare that I needed. So I started running as a way to cope with my mental health. It felt very calming and grounding to be able to remove myself from any unsafe situation and to just almost meditate while running. And over time, not only did it become a coping mechanism, but I actually started to feel empowered while running. I started to compete well. I felt confident in completing workouts, in showing up to meets and representing my community. I ran track and field in cross country at the Muckle Muckleshoot Tribal School where I represented my communities at meets.
Kara Bazzi (02:35):
And I know you’ve shared before in your story that you were the one distance runner. Is that correct at your school?
Rosalie Fish (02:43):
The only distance runner, so the only person on my cross country team, and even at some points, one of the only people on the track team as well, by my senior year we had three people on the track team and we were all on the girls team.
Kara Bazzi (02:59):
Yeah, that’s different than a lot of people’s experiences being on a track team that usually, I mean right now I think of teams being at a hundred plus athletes, so that is, yeah.
Rosalie Fish (03:13):
Yeah. I felt isolating at some points, running workouts by myself, showing up to beats by myself, especially in cross country. Girls would be lining up with 4, 5, 10 other teammates in the same box as them. And every time I was just by myself, I was warming up by myself, doing my drills by myself. And I was very fortunate to have a coach who really cared about me, but it felt very isolating, especially when I went to meets and saw communities of distance runners and knowing that yes, I was showing up for myself, but I really had to stay grounded in the fact that I was also showing up for my community. And even though I might not have runners in my community, I’m representing my family, the people at my school, my elders. And so even though they weren’t physically there with me, it felt like I still had that community emotionally and spiritually.
Kara Bazzi (04:16):
And I know you’ve also talked about that experience with just how others treated you at those meets. And yeah, I’d love to hear more about that in terms of just that experience.
Rosalie Fish (04:29):
Yeah, absolutely. So because I was at a tribal school, we have the Muckleshoot Tribal School on our uniform, and unfortunately there’s a lot of negative stereotypes about tribal schools. And when I showed up to meets by myself, I was often excluded from invitationals. Even when I ran qualifying times and my coach requested to allow me into an invitational, they would respond with things like, well, we’ve never heard of Muckleshoot Tribal school before. I at one point had even been asked if I owned a uniform when attempting to run in an all city meet. And in general there were a ton of barriers and it felt like it was a fight to just get to the starting line, let alone run the race. Eventually I began to find my confidence when I started training, I had these barriers in mind, but through the support of my community, the support of my coach and my family, it almost was another sense of motivation to know that I was defying the odds and being a role model for the youth at my tribal school. So while that was very difficult and very mentally tolling over time, I was able to channel that into a motivation, but it definitely took its toll.
Kara Bazzi (05:58):
Did you find that any of the other schools, the runners, did anyone acknowledge you? Was there any welcoming you at those meets of showing, I dunno, interest in you? I think of my own. Both my girls are in cross country and track, and I always get delighted when they are starting when they’re talking to kids from other schools and going outside of themselves. And did anyone include you in that or did you feel pretty isolated in that way?
Rosalie Fish (06:28):
I didn’t get a ton of acknowledgement until I started to actually win the races, and that’s when people started to take a notice into who I was and where I came from. However, once I became more successful, it was almost as if things got polarized where someone was very happy for me or a team would be very happy for me, and then they would be administration who would actively try to disqualify me from meets
Kara Bazzi (06:58):
On the basis of what
Rosalie Fish (07:00):
I once was running a workout in a meet and the officials tried to disqualify me because I wasn’t taking it seriously. But this was my best form of training because I couldn’t train with anyone else at home. And so the race was a smaller league race and my coach decided the best way for me to do this workout was in the race. And I guess that offended one of the officials ego a little bit. And while there was that pushback from officials, I would also use those races to pace girls who had time goals. If someone said they wanted to run a five 40 mile, I would pace them for the three laps and then push them on the last one. So this wasn’t just about my own personal growth, but I was actively trying to create a community with other schools as well. However, because I was from a tribal school, I was actively defying this expectation that tribal school kids and Native Americans don’t really belong in sports.
Kara Bazzi (08:12):
So in some ways you were more visible, these officials noticing what you’re doing. I hear that and I’m like, that happens all the time that kids are using meets as workouts.
Rosalie Fish (08:25):
Yeah, I you’re absolutely right that there are athletes who use meats in the way that moats benefits them. However, when I did it, it was almost this like this tribal school kid can’t possibly be using this as a workout. And I faced the repercussions. Luckily I had a coach who was very feisty and he was always willing to go up to bat for me. He often the rule book with him at all times because that’s how often it was that someone was trying to disqualify me from a race that he had a rule book with him ready to go.
Kara Bazzi (09:07):
Wow. I mean, it’s both disheartening and encouraging to hear about the way the coach advocated for you and just disheartening to hear about the way that you were treated.
Rosalie Fish (09:20):
Yeah, it was definitely a moment to build resilience and also gave me a little bit of empathy for all of the individuals and communities who have barriers to sport.
Kara Bazzi (09:30):
Yeah. I’d love for you maybe to start talking a bit about when the activism part of you and sharing a bit about that with the listeners.
Rosalie Fish (09:41):
Yeah. So I’ve always been in the activism world, especially when I was around 16. There was the no dapple, the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota that went straight through the Standing Rock reservation and it poses a direct risk to the quality of life and the water quality of the tribal people there. And this is something that really affected me emotionally and I decided that I would join the efforts. So the Puyallup Canoe family actually drove 26 hours to North Dakota with a canoe towed on the back of their trailers and we put the canoe on the water in the Standing Rock reservation as a way to protest. So while I hadn’t always used running as a form of activism, activism was always something that was near and dear to my heart. And eventually when I became a senior in high school and I started to be very successful in my high school running career, I saw an activist named Jordan Marie Daniel, who now goes by Jordan Marie Wetstone, and she is a Lakota runner, and she ran the 2019 Boston Marathon with a red hand print over her mouth and the letters MMIW.
(11:10):
And that stands for missing and Murdered indigenous Women. The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis is something that I’ve been aware of for as young as my freshman year in high school when I really started to piece together that these women and the funerals I was attending consistently growing up were connected to missing and murdered indigenous women. And I always felt powerless in that issue. I felt very vulnerable in my own health and honestly scared for the indigenous women in my family as well. So when I saw Jordan Marie Wetstone run with the red hand print during the Boston Marathon to represent the indigenous women and girls who’ve been silenced through violence, I was inspired and empowered, especially being the only person running distance on my team. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone anymore to see someone like myself reflected in a race as big as the Boston Marathon.
(12:18):
And not only was she there, that she was unapologetically standing for her people and disrupting the silence and I was immediately starstruck. So I found her contact information on social media and I reached out to her and told her I have an incredible opportunity for state championships. I’m running in four events and ranked to either win them or second, third place. And I knew I was going to be on that podium a couple of times and I wanted to do something with that. And yes, it would be impactful to have a native person from a tribal school on the podium, but I felt like I could do more that I wanted to represent my community and I was feeling confident in myself as an athlete. So after I reached out to her, she actually responded and told me that she thinks it’s a great idea to run for missing and murdered indigenous women at my state track meet.
(13:21):
She gave me a bunch of advice and pointers and so I started to plan, I bought the paint and I started to print pictures of missing or murdered indigenous people from my community. So that way I made a display with the poster board and it had the photos and stories of four women from my community and I decided to dedicate each of my races to a specific person to raise awareness for them. And that’s how I started intersecting my activism career into my running career. So I left the state championship with three state titles and one runner up, and I actually ended up going onto the podium five times because I got a sportsmanship medal as well. And I decided to gift all of those medals to the woman that I was representing. And so I connected the medals to the posters and put it all on a display board and left it out.
(14:29):
And so as spectators were walking around the meet, they would pass this poster board and read the stories and see the faces of the indigenous women who have gotten no media coverage whose cases went cold. And I actually saw people get very emotionally reactive, people starting to get tears in their eyes and crying a little bit. And another runner from a different tribal school who had ran the same event as me on the men’s team actually gave his medal to the poster as well. And that’s how I jumped into this activism and running career. And I have stuck with it ever since.
Kara Bazzi (15:15):
So powerful. The listeners can’t see this, but I’m tearing up too. I have my goosebumps, my tears, and I wish I could have been at that meet. It’s just really powerful to hear that. Thank you. Especially being a lot of listeners know that this is a sport that we share and I literally was at a track meet yesterday and just imagining this powerful demonstration and awareness bringing and so it’s really impactful to hear you share that story. Thank you. And obviously you’re not in high school anymore, so say more about where you went from there with your journey into the college world.
Rosalie Fish (15:55):
I actually started high school thinking that I probably wouldn’t go to college. I didn’t have an immediate way to pay for it. I still didn’t have a athletic confidence yet. And so by my senior year, my coach really started to see some potential in me for collegiate running, and I still was struggling with that confidence. It’s all of this tribal school, kids don’t belong in sports, or do you even have a uniform or you’re just by yourself? And even though I was actively trying to fight that, some of it gets internalized. And so I noticed I was starting to tell myself, yeah, I can do high school sports, but I don’t think I can do college sports. And my coach just ignored that. He didn’t take that for an answer and he started reaching out to coaches for me. And we landed on a community college in Iowa called Iowa Central Community College.
(16:52):
I did not have the confidence to go straight into a university and Iowa seemed perfect because not only did it have a multiple time national champion, cross country and track team with athletes from all over the world like Kenya and South Sudan, Italy, and France, but they also had a very decorated team and decorated coach. And the reason why my coach also chose Iowa is because it was over a thousand miles away from home and there was still domestic violence in my family and he knew that I needed to get away from that unfortunately. So while I had never really heard of Iowa or knew exactly where it was on the map, I was there for two years and I built my running career and experienced two national championships both in the women’s cross country and also in the indoor DMR. And I really developed my running career and ran for missing and murdered indigenous women another two times. And after that I started to have conversations with university coaches as my sophomore year was coming to a close and I landed a conversation with Marisa Powell from the University of Washington
Kara Bazzi (18:27):
And then became a University of Washington runner, which again, I love some of the connection that we have. I also was a former UW runner. I know that when you shared with our staff, you talked about some of that journey as well, going from the Iowa team to the UDub team. And why don’t you share a little bit more about that experience being at UDub?
Rosalie Fish (18:50):
Yeah, so I was again, a little starstruck speaking with Marisa. I had visited the purple track a few times in high school and I remember watching these highly talented athletes doing their workout on the track. And internally I thought to myself, if only I could be at that level, and it was a dream that I didn’t even dare to say out loud. I wouldn’t tell anyone that secretly deep down I wanted to be at that level because it just seemed so far away from me at that time. And after speaking with Marisa and we just kind of clicked and she was incredibly supportive of my activism and I told her, even at Iowa Central, there was still people trying to disqualify me from my races for running with the hand print. I told her some of my coaches have a little bit of extra work with me, they have to be aware of the rules and making sure that they have some kind of defense for me if and when another school or another coach tried to disqualify me, I even went to the NJCA board a couple of times because one of the board members actually told me that running for the paint was too political and divisive and I would not be permitted to run with the red hand print.
(20:27):
However, my coach and I had to go to other board members and eventually get that overturned. And so I was very upfront with Marisa and I told her that sometimes having me as an athlete is extra work because of this and running for missing and murdered indigenous women is not something that I’m going to compromise. So we have to be on the same page. And she told me that I should always be able to run for missing and murdered indigenous women, and if anyone tries to get in my way that she will a hundred percent support me. And that was all I needed. That’s amazing. I said, alright, let’s sign
Kara Bazzi (21:10):
These papers. That’s amazing. I love that. I mean, that was so firmly rooted and you knew that you had to be doing that and that you found a coach that would a hundred percent support you.
Rosalie Fish (21:21):
Yeah, absolutely. And I’d been following the Huskies for a little while. All my family were husky supporters, so it just kind of felt like a dream a little bit. And then to come back home after two long years of being in the Midwest, I was ready to come home. I missed my family a lot. I mean now I have seven siblings and an eighth on the way, and they’re like my life, my heart and my breath. And to be away from them for so long, especially that was in the midst of COVID as well, I was so ready to come home and it just felt like everything was falling into place.
Kara Bazzi (22:04):
That’s awesome. Before we switch gears, is there anything more you’d want to share about the experience that you’ve had with UDub running and the activism and anything you want to highlight on that level?
Rosalie Fish (22:17):
Yeah, absolutely. I knew that going to the University of Washington would also be very difficult. I was coming from teams in high school and teams in college where I was within the top three and just how competitive, not only the division one level, but the University of Washington team in itself. I mean, there are incredibly talented and driven athletes on this team, and I knew that I wouldn’t have a varsity spot anymore, and it was something that I was willing to put myself out there. It was a little bit vulnerable, but over time I was able to build incredibly powerful relationships with my teammates and I learned what it meant to be a part of a successful team. And so I’ve enjoyed my time there for sure. And I do have lifelong friends that I’ve met on the women’s distance
Kara Bazzi (23:16):
Team team. I can’t help but thinking back to my own experience there, and again, just the being impacted by teammates and being that is at the university level, that is what I remember as my time in sport, not my courses, my teachers. I remember those experiences on the team and how my teammates shaped me for challenge in hard ways and in life-giving ways. And so it comes with the full gamut of ways that we’re influenced in that by coaches and teammates because spending so much time with them.
Rosalie Fish (23:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
Kara Bazzi (23:53):
Yeah, I’d love to hear more about that because again, Opal is talking about the intersection of sport and mental health and eating disorders. And so I’d love to hear you share a bit with the listeners about your journey with your relationship with food and sport and with your cultural identity. I think when you shared that part with our staff, I thought I was really impacted by that of how your native heritage and your cultural identity, especially even around food influenced your experience being on these teams. We know that higher level athletics, especially in distance running comes with a lot of disordered eating, eating disorders and an orientation to food that’s pretty just centered around sport performance. And so I would love for you to talk about that.
Rosalie Fish (24:43):
Yeah, absolutely. I have to be completely transparent, my first year at the University of Washington was one of the most challenging years I’ve had as an athlete. I came onto the team and I immediately started comparing myself and my body to the runners and athletes who were on the team at that time and noticed I truly didn’t really look like a lot of my fellow teammates at the time. I was one of three native student athletes within the entire field of athletics, and now I’m one of two. And both of these, my other native athlete at UDub is we’re both scheduled to graduate this quarter and
Kara Bazzi (25:35):
We’re talking like 700 student athletes around, right? I mean, I don’t know the numbers at this point, but in the athletic department’s probably about that size.
Rosalie Fish (25:46):
Yeah, absolutely. So that in itself was isolating because even though I suddenly had a huge team and I was in Seattle again, I was still over an hour away from my reservation and the only native athlete on my team, and even then a tiny percentage of athletes all overall, I started comparing my body, comparing my socioeconomic background, even not being able to relate with athletes who were high income, even athletes who had parents who were athletes, my family, they were athletic, but I never had any college runners in my family. I was known to be the runner on my reservation, actually still am known to be the runner just because there weren’t a lot of distance runners. And I was the first student at my high school to sign a collegiate letter of intent and the first student to go to a division one university.
(26:56):
So a lot of what I was doing, even though I was empowered by my community, was still in a way isolating. And I thought by being on this huge team with incredibly talented runners, that I wouldn’t have that feeling anymore, but it was almost worse than what I had experienced in the past. And so unfortunately with this comparison, it was taking a toll on my mental health, looking at just people’s bodies and noticing the differences of mine. And I got some pretty rough body dysphoria. And on top of all of that, I was starting to see a mental health therapist at the time for the first time almost ever. And I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder from having domestic violence in my home growing up. And so all of these things were being combined where I wasn’t feeling confident in myself, whether it be through my body or my sport.
(27:58):
And now I was dealing with my post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis and everything just was starting to feel like it was crashing down. I had such high expectations going to a division one university. It was a huge victory in native community. I had people calling me and saying, the Tulalip Middle school girls started a cross country team because they heard that I had signed to the University of Washington and said they didn’t know that we could do that. And so there was an immense amount of pressure and responsibility and the three of those things combined, I just broke and I redshirted my first year at the University of Washington between trying different meds for my mental health and doing these trials and having anxiety. It was like sometimes I would go to a workout and I would start to get my legs back under me and something would go wrong and I would have a panic attack.
(29:01):
So that first year was one of the darkest years I’ve ever had as an athlete. And I redshirted my entire first year. Coming into my second year, I was still having a hard time being around my team just again, because of the body dysmorphia and not being able to relate with people. They were all very kind and still are very kind people. I was just having a hard time seeing myself and the other athletes on my team and was dealing with injuries on and off. And in hindsight now I’m able to see it’s because I wasn’t enough. It wasn’t intentional, however, I wasn’t proactive about it either. So it was a very passive disordered eating. And so I struggled with injuries on and off and again was still having this body dysmorphia, this anxiety around the team and redshirted my second year, and that was supposed to be it, and I just truly could not cope with that.
(30:05):
And so I decided to add a minor into my education and took a fifth year because I had redshirted. And on top of COVID, I had plenty of eligibility to do so, and I trained all summer by myself. And I had this drive though thinking this is it and I have to pull it together. And so by the time that the September came around and it was team camp, I made the cut and I knew I just couldn’t look back. I had a solid relationship with my mental health therapist at the time. I was starting to meet teammates who I could relate with. The team got a little bit more diverse, and through having teammates that I could relate with, I then felt comfortable enough to create friendships with the athletes that I didn’t immediately relate with. So I was starting to find and feel safe in this team community and training was going well.
(31:11):
I had started to have a good relationship with my trainers and my physical therapists and everything was on the up. I raced for the first time in the UW uniform in September at a cross country race in an open JV race, and actually finished first in the women’s category, which was definitely a win for my confidence. Ran a pretty good time and later on won the Women’s Sports Foundation, Wilma Rudolph Courage Award and raced in another six K, eventually came to PAC 12 championships. And my entire goal was, the first one was to compete period, to have the UW uniform on and run in a race. And I hit that. And then my second goal was just make it to the PAC 12 championships. So by the time that had run around, I was in the best shape of my life. I was feeling even more confident.
(32:16):
I had a training group, I was even able to lead some of the workouts in the training group. Things were finally coming together. And I ran in the PAC 12 championships and as a team, we were the last, the reigning PAC 12 championships at the Tacoma, the home meet. So being able to experience a conference championship with my team and later on started doing some time trials, was having incredible minute prs, and it was finally coming together. And unfortunately, I hit a really rough point when I went home for winter break and just felt very isolated again. And unfortunately, part of my post-traumatic stress disorder is I also have bipolar disorder. And sometimes when I get into a low mood swing, it just feels impossible to get out. And at that time, I felt like I had lost everything. I came back to training and it felt like I was starting from day one and again, was starting to get a little bit more of this body dysmorphia, unintentionally not eating enough.
(33:33):
I was so busy from this day to day that I truly was just underestimating how much I needed to be fueling my body. And after fighting and fighting to get back, I was diagnosed with a stress fracture in my shin. And the amount of time it would take to recover basically disqualified me from competing in the winter or spring. And so that led to my medical retirement. I’ve now been medically retired for a couple of months now. It was definitely one of the lowest points that I’ve had in my tradition. My hair is meant to be long, and I actually for the first time in six years, cut my hair as a way of mourning and grieving. So this was truly a loss to me. I felt like I was letting go of my identity and to have running stripped for me, not only to compete, but noticing that I couldn’t run for my mental health anymore either.
(34:34):
I was trying to swim, I was trying to bike, I was trying to walk, but it wasn’t the same. I’ve actually been cleared. I’m able to jog now. And I decided in order for my own mental health and also for the wellbeing of my old high school, they actually needed a middle school coach. And if they couldn’t find one, they were going to drop the program for the year. And it felt like maybe something happened for a reason. And so now I am taking full credits, however, all my classes are asynchronous, and I am now the middle school head coach at my old tribal school and the high school assistant coach. And it’s just been a blast. And to be able to go back to my old high school meets and actually being recognized by old officials, and it’s so funny because they will ask me, aren’t you supposed to be running out there? And I have to tell that I am retired.
Kara Bazzi (35:36):
Wow. Rosalie, I mean, thank you so much for the honesty and sharing your story and all of the ups and the downs, the barriers, the reality. I really appreciate that. And I think the listeners are going to really appreciate that. And I mean, we could spend hours on any of these topics, right around grief and loss and sport changing of identity and just the reality of mental health struggle too as an athletes that we know there’s more people speaking up about this, but we need more and more of it because there is this notion of, and truly a lot of privilege that comes with higher level athletics, and yet a lot of things are hidden underneath that around disordered eating, eating disorders, mental health concerns, and not enough resources that can be specific to those that understand athletic identity. So I really appreciate you sharing just your true lived experience.
Rosalie Fish (36:37):
Thank you.
Kara Bazzi (36:38):
Yeah,
Rosalie Fish (36:39):
I will say that I don’t regret anything in my path. And the way I’m going to ensure that is to raise awareness and to connect to the youth. I made sure that at my old tribal high school and the team that I coach, that I actually worked with the athletic director to make sure that they’re all sent home with a snack after practice and learning how to talk to my athletes as well and fostering a healthy relationship with food. It was also really hard coming to the University of Washington and my cultural foods weren’t readily available to me. Not only is it just the salmon and the berries, and another big part of native culture is fry bread. And even though it’s not necessarily traditional, a lot of reservations were given cooking oil and flour and syrup and juice and canned foods and were told figure it out, survive or don’t.
(37:43):
That was the approach to what they called the Indian problem at the time. And through those low resourced rations, native communities made fry bread, which is like a dough doy bread. It can be either sweet or savory. Some people put taco seasonings and taco spices and yes condiments, things like that. So they make it into a fried bread taco or they’ll put jam on it and have it as a sweet thing. And I knew that if I ate that around certain people, that I would get comments about it. And there was this lack of awareness that cultural foods couldn’t be healthy foods and that I needed to separate them, and I just couldn’t eat my cultural foods while eating healthy or eating to compete that they could never overlap. And I’m working really hard to destroy that stereotype in my own team.
Kara Bazzi (38:56):
Yes, please. Let’s destroy that stereotype. Yes.
Rosalie Fish (39:02):
Yeah, absolutely. So I will admit there were external factors. There were societal factors that stripped my identity from what I ate. And now people are starting to talk a little bit more about it. I think they called it relative energy deficiency in sport where a lot of athletes are prone to stress fractures because of the fueling in their body. And I knew that’s what happened to me. So I’ve been trying to raise awareness. I’m also a Brooks Run happy advocate. So trying to raise awareness through my social media and the semi-pro platform, I have to be completely open and transparent with my story.
Kara Bazzi (39:54):
And seeing you be able to bring that to your coaching experience and get to integrate some of these things that you can see kind of broken in the system. Do you have any, at this point, do you have any imagination for how the systems of athletic departments, and especially in division one universities can change and grow or make systemic changes even within the dining hall? Yeah. I’m curious if you’ve had thoughts around that or if I know you’re early in this transition, so maybe that’s starting with your team, but I feel curious if you’ve had any thoughts about that.
Rosalie Fish (40:35):
Absolutely. I did love or do love, I do love the nutritionist at the University of Washington, the one who worked with this distance team. She was incredible. And when I told her that these foods are important to me, there was never any shaming. It was always like, how do we make this fit? So that gave me a very good example of how important a nutritionist is. I think the biggest thing to work on right now is our language and our culture. So unfortunately in a lot of college athletics and even professional athletics, it’s talk about it, don’t show the weakness, keep it internal. And I wish that in general there was more of an accepting and vulnerable. And also at the same time, safe environment where athletes are able to talk to each other about their mental health and their relationship to food. It feels like now you almost have to refer someone to a nutritionist or even set up the appointment for them. It’s really hard for athletes to come out and realize, I need to meet with a nutritionist that this is something that is going to affect me. And unfortunately, that culture, that awareness just isn’t there. I would say that’s the first thing. And the second thing is language. How do we talk to our athletes about food? Is there such a thing as the perfect weight for an event? I mean, the answer is no, but
Kara Bazzi (42:21):
No,
Rosalie Fish (42:22):
No. And so how do we destroy these stereotypes and how do we change our language into a way that’s welcoming and inclusive and makes people feel safe to want to go to a nutritionist? And so even now I’m focusing how can we have a nutritionist on call for the high school so that if someone needs a referral, we do that. Because what I do see outside of the University of Washington is there are certain coaches or staff, and if they see a concerning behavior, they attempt to address it themselves or they ignore it. And what needs to be happening is an immediate referral system. It’s not the coach’s responsibility to educate on food if they don’t have the degree. So I would believe that there needs to be a much better referral system.
Kara Bazzi (43:16):
Yeah, I’m with you on that one. Well, I know, again, I feel like we could talk for a long time on all these topics, but in the interest of time, we’re probably going to be wrapping up here. So is there anything though, at this point that you really, we haven’t talked about that you feel important to share today on this episode?
Rosalie Fish (43:37):
Absolutely. I think we’ve had really good conversations about running, about activism and about food and mental health. And I always try to end or include youth in these conversations. It can be very impactful to make structural changes in the college athletic world or even the professional athletic world. However, we also need to put a huge emphasis on youth. How are we talking about food to the youth? How are we making nutritionists available or diverse foods available to them? Are we watching how they talk about their own bodies or bodies of others to themselves? How do I correct that in even with my now younger team, they’re saying, I noticed that all the runners look like this. Well, I need a runner’s body. And it’s just constantly trying to positively correct that and say, you’re running and it’s your body. You have a runner’s body, right? Or eating what makes you feel good. There’s a lot of coaching out there or coaching philosophy that says you need to restrict your athletes from eating these things. I mean, I was reading a coaching book that’s training youth championships that has a cheeseburger fried chicken, all of these delicious foods and a fake cal calorie count in this book. And I just wanted to rip that page out.
(45:10):
I’m like, this is incredibly inappropriate. And so I’ve leaned away from my athletes can’t eat these things to you should be eating what makes you feel good before your race. I mean, talkies is a big thing. The spicy chips at the tribal school, I mean, I love them and I’m not going to tell these kids, you can’t eat this food that you love, that you would eat every day. If you could, I just say save it for after the meat. Okay.
Kara Bazzi (45:40):
Yeah.
Rosalie Fish (45:41):
And that’s fine. It’s about meeting these kids where they’re at and showing them that your needs are flexible, and we can fluctuate what that means for you in each plan or each eating habits, as long as they work for you and you feel good and you feel confident, that’s what matters. So trying to start with the youth there, because unfortunately, they’re at a super young age already picking up on this stuff.
Kara Bazzi (46:11):
And I see people like you and youth coming up. My hope and my belief is with more athletes understanding these things and advocating for themselves, that will turn the dial more and more of how these systems are set up, where there’s going to be a demand for change, and that it’s not going to be tolerated the old ways of talking about food and body. And so I feel encouraged by that. Rosalie, where is there anything for the listeners if they want to know more about you and the work you’re doing where they could find you?
Rosalie Fish (46:50):
Sure. I am on social media. The only one I really have is Instagram, and it’s just my first and last name, Rosalie Fish. And then in a little x after it, my contact information is on there, like my email as well. And I try to respond to any requests if anything comes up. And other than that, I would say to learn more about the missing and murdered indigenous women and people. Now, Washington State does have a task force, and we are also the only state in the country that has something called the Missing Indigenous Persons Alert, which is mepa, MIPA. And one more organization I’ll bring up is called Mother Nation. It’s just www.mothernation.org. They’re an organization, a nonprofit that I worked with where I was the missing indigenous persons family advocate. And they are doing incredible work, including around food sovereignty and youth mental health, healthy relationships, victim advocacy. So I actually plan on using some of their groups and bringing my athletes there just to have talks about what healthy relationships look like. So they’re a huge resource and also just an incredible organization to support.
Kara Bazzi (48:07):
And we will be putting those links then in our show sheet.
Rosalie Fish (48:10):
Oh, cool.
Kara Bazzi (48:11):
Yeah. Well, thank you Rosalie, again for sharing your story and for being honest and brave and being here today. If you’re interested in learning more, like I said, we’ll put the links in the show sheet. And if you want to learn more about Opal, please visit us at opal food and body.com. Thanks to David Bazzi for editing, Jack Straw Cultural Center for Sound Engineering, and Aaron Davidson for the Appetite’s Original Music. See you next time.
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