Olivia: By the age of 14, girls are dropping out of sports at twice the rate of boys. By 17, over half are gone completely. Jackson: Whoa, that’s a staggering number. You’d think it’s just a shift in interests, but what if it’s not? Olivia: It’s not. This isn't a lack of interest. It's a system pushing them out. A system that praises them, ironically, for being 'good for a girl.' That shocking reality is at the heart of the book we’re diving into today: Good for a Girl: A Woman Runner's Story by Lauren Fleshman. Jackson: And Fleshman isn't just an observer. She's a multiple-time NCAA and US champion runner. She lived this at the highest level, which gives her story so much weight. Olivia: Exactly. She’s not just theorizing; she’s bearing witness from the inside. And the book itself has been a phenomenon—it won the prestigious William Hill Sports Book of the Year award, which is a huge deal in sports literature. It’s part memoir, part manifesto, and it’s a powerful look at a broken system. Jackson: That phrase, 'good for a girl,' it sounds like a compliment on the surface, but it feels so loaded. What does it really mean in the context of this book? Olivia: It’s the central paradox. It’s a pat on the head that simultaneously puts a ceiling on your potential. It means you’re great, but only within a limited, secondary category. And Fleshman argues this mindset is the root of a system that sets girls up for a painful collision with their own biology.

Jackson: A collision with their own biology. That sounds intense. How does that start? It can't just happen overnight when you turn pro. Olivia: It starts almost from day one. Fleshman has this incredible story from when she was eight. She wanted to play with the neighborhood boys, but they excluded her. She went to her dad, Frank, who was this charismatic, larger-than-life figure. Jackson: And what was his advice? "Just ask nicely"? Olivia: Not exactly. He told her, "They’re just scared of you. They know you can beat them. They don’t want to lose to a girl, but too fucking BAD!" Then he told her that if they gave her any trouble, she should kick them in the balls. Jackson: He told his eight-year-old daughter to do what now? That is… wild. Did she do it? Olivia: Oh, she did. She marched right out there, kicked a boy, and they let her play. On one hand, it’s this moment of fierce empowerment. Her father is telling her she can do anything, that she’s powerful. But it also teaches her a very specific lesson: to gain access to the boys' world, you have to beat them at their own game, often with aggression. Jackson: I can see how that would be a confusing message. It’s like you’re being told to be a fighter, to be tough, but you’re still an outsider trying to get in. Olivia: Precisely. And that "be perfect, be tough" message was amplified by her home life. Her father was also an alcoholic, and his behavior was volatile. She tells this harrowing story, "The Spaghetti Incident," where he flew into a rage over how she was eating her pasta, picked her up, and threw her across the room. Jackson: Oh my god. That’s horrifying. Olivia: It was her mother who stepped in and gave her father an ultimatum that stopped the physical abuse. But for Lauren, the lesson was clear: to maintain peace and earn her father's love, she had to be perfect. She had to perform, to be compliant, to anticipate his moods. Jackson: Wow, so you have these two conflicting scripts running at the same time. One says: be a dominant, aggressive winner who takes no prisoners. The other says: be a perfect, compliant daughter to keep the peace. That’s a classic double bind. Olivia: It’s the perfect setup for the conflict she would face in her running career. The sports world, especially back then, was built on that same contradiction for women. It celebrated their success, but only if they were also compliant, coachable, and fit a certain mold. The system itself was, as Fleshman puts it, built by men, for men. Jackson: Okay, but what does that mean in practical terms? We hear about Title IX and equal opportunity. Isn't giving girls the same access to tracks, coaches, and competitions the definition of equality? Olivia: That’s the flawed logic Fleshman dismantles. She quotes, "Our definition of gender equality has been ‘getting what men have, the way they have it,’ and it’s backfiring." Giving a girl the same training program as a boy, especially after puberty, is not equality. It’s ignoring her fundamental biology. Jackson: So it’s like being given the keys to a Formula 1 car but being told you have to drive it on a bumpy dirt road. The machine is powerful, but the environment is designed to break it. Olivia: That’s a perfect analogy. When puberty hits, boys' bodies are flooded with testosterone, leading to more muscle, stronger bones, and higher red blood cell counts—all things that boost athletic performance. Girls' bodies are preparing for fertility. They gain body fat, their hips widen. These are healthy, normal changes, but in a system that only values linear, male-pattern improvement, these changes are seen as a liability. Jackson: And that’s where the high dropout rate comes from. Girls feel like their bodies are betraying them. Olivia: Exactly. And the system offers no guidance. Instead, you get what Fleshman calls the "body duality." You're expected to be strong and powerful for your sport, but also fit a narrow, often sexualized, ideal of feminine beauty. She tells a story about going dress shopping for the eighth-grade dance with her softball teammates. They’re all celebrating their developing curves, and she feels "defective" because she's still flat-chested and athletic. Her body, the source of her power on the field, feels like a failure in the dressing room. Jackson: That’s heartbreaking. You’re being judged by two completely different, and often contradictory, sets of rules. Olivia: And this leads directly to the most dangerous battle many female athletes face—the one with their own bodies. It’s a fight that takes place in plain sight, often encouraged by the very culture that’s supposed to support them.

Jackson: Okay, so the system is flawed. It creates this pressure cooker. How does that internal battle with the body actually play out for an elite athlete like Fleshman? Olivia: It starts subtly. At Stanford, she’s a superstar, winning NCAA titles. But she’s surrounded by a culture obsessed with leanness. She sees other runners, even on her own team, struggling with disordered eating. There’s this unspoken belief that lighter is faster. Jackson: A belief that seems to ignore all the biological realities you just mentioned. Olivia: Completely. And it gets validated in insidious ways. During her senior year, her coach sends her for a VO2 max test—a measure of aerobic capacity. The physiologist tells her the number is good, but then adds a fateful line: "the number is calculated as it relates to kilograms of body weight, so a person can change the number if they change their weight." Jackson: Oh no. So he’s basically giving her a scientific-sounding reason to get thinner. Olivia: He planted the seed. Fleshman becomes obsessed. She finds the stats of another world-class runner, Paula Radcliffe, who is her height but ten pounds lighter. That becomes her new goal. She moves to Ohio to train for the 2004 Olympics and starts a calorie-restricted diet, meticulously tracking every single thing she eats. She’s ignoring her hunger and calling it discipline. Jackson: And her body must have been screaming for more fuel. She’s training at an Olympic level on a starvation diet. Olivia: It was. And the most alarming sign was that her period stopped. But in the warped logic of elite sports, she saw this as a good thing. She writes, "Never getting my period meant that every day of the month was a good day for a key workout or race." She saw it as an advantage, a way to make her body more like a man's—consistent, linear, without cycles. Jackson: That is terrifying. She's actively celebrating a major sign of her body being in distress. This is where the concept of RED-S comes in, right? Olivia: Yes. Can you break that down for us? What exactly is Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport? Olivia: RED-S is a condition caused by what’s called low energy availability. It means an athlete isn't consuming enough calories to support their training load and their basic bodily functions. The body goes into conservation mode. It starts shutting down non-essential systems, and for women, the reproductive system is one of the first to go. This leads to the loss of menstruation, which in turn disrupts the hormones needed for bone health. Jackson: So the very thing she thinks is making her a better, more "efficient" athlete is actually dismantling her body from the inside out. Olivia: Precisely. And the consequences were catastrophic. She develops a stress reaction in her foot. The doctor warns her she’s on the edge. She misses the Olympic standard by one second. The injury gets worse, becoming a full-blown fracture of her navicular bone—a notoriously difficult bone to heal. Her Olympic dream for 2004 is over. All because she was chasing a number on a scale. She says it so powerfully in the book: "I thought I needed to get light when I really needed to get strong." Jackson: It’s such a tragic, and from what you’re saying, common story. Is there a way out of this mindset? The book can't just be a chronicle of suffering. Olivia: There is. And it comes in the form of another runner, her friend Kim Smith. Kim was also an elite athlete, but she had a completely different relationship with her body and food. Fleshman describes being in an airport with her, and Kim is just unapologetically enjoying a greasy piece of bacon. Jackson: A small act of rebellion in that world. Olivia: A huge one. Lauren says something like, "I wish I could eat like that." And Kim just looks at her and says, "You can." She calls her out, telling her, "I swear all you Americans are way too obsessed with weight. You think you’re eating healthy, but you’re just obsessive. It messes with your confidence. You gotta let it go." Jackson: Wow. Sometimes that kind of blunt honesty from a peer is more powerful than any advice from a coach or doctor. Olivia: It was a turning point. It helped Lauren start to untangle her self-worth from her weight. She realized that true strength wasn't about restriction; it was about fueling her body and trusting it. It was a long, hard road back, but that shift in mindset is what allowed her to eventually win another US Championship and have a sustainable professional career.

Jackson: So after all this—the injuries, the pressure, the broken system—what's the ultimate takeaway? It feels like such a monumental problem. Is there hope for change? Olivia: There is, but Fleshman is clear that the solution isn't just for individual athletes to be more resilient. The entire system has to change. The "Good for a Girl" paradox, where girls are told to be powerful in a system not built for them, directly creates the conditions for that internal "Battle for a Healthy Body." The two are completely intertwined. Jackson: So it’s not enough to just tell girls to "love their bodies." You have to change the environment that’s teaching them to hate their bodies in the first place. Olivia: Exactly. And Fleshman has put her money where her mouth is. She became a coach herself, creating a professional running group, Littlewing Athletics, specifically to provide a healthier, more female-centric training environment. She also famously took on Nike, her own sponsor, for their sexualized marketing of female athletes. Jackson: That takes incredible courage. To challenge the hand that feeds you. Olivia: It does. She fought for a campaign that showed her as strong and defiant, not just as an object of beauty. The tagline was "Objectify Me," but the image was of her, fully clothed, staring down the camera. It was a powerful reclamation of her own image. It showed that athletes can be advocates. Jackson: That’s a much more empowering story. It’s a shift from being a victim of the system to being an architect of a new one. Olivia: And that’s the final, profound message of the book. It’s a call to action. For parents, to educate themselves on female physiology. For coaches, to stop praising weight loss and start prioritizing health. And for athletes, to find their voice. Fleshman ends with this sense of hope, that by telling these stories, we can start to build a world of sports that is not just good for a girl, but genuinely good for women. Jackson: That’s a powerful distinction. It makes me think about how this applies beyond sports. In how many other fields are women and girls asked to shrink themselves to fit into a system, instead of us rebuilding the system to let them expand and thrive? Olivia: A question we should all be asking. The book is full of these moments of clarity, but one of my favorites is her simple realization after her injury: "I thought I needed to get light when I really needed to get strong." It’s a lesson that resonates far beyond the running track. Jackson: Absolutely. That’s a line that will stick with me. We’d love to hear what resonates with you all. Join the conversation on our social channels and let us know what parts of Lauren's story stood out. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.