News + Events: Articles

Nalani Oda (Girls4Sport Team Rider), 27, of Wailupe, can jump and spin 25 feet in the air. She can kite-surf, and teach board surfing, for six hours at a stretch. She rock-climbs at Waimea.

Four years ago, however, she could not climb three steps on a staircase without stopping to gasp for breath. Her body was barely functioning as she slowly starved herself, eating fewer than 500 calories a day. She lost one third of her total body weight.

Now a professional kite-surfer and instructor for the Hans Hedemann Surf School and OffDaLip, Oda is the healthiest she's ever been, and is winning her battle with two eating disorders: anorexia and bulimia.

Anorexia is characterized by starvation and compulsive exercising. Bulimia is characterized by an obsessive concern with body weight that leads to periods of binge eating and self-induced vomiting or overuse of laxatives.

Those who suffer from these diseases are often bright young women who demand perfection of themselves.

Praises for thinness

The eating disorders crept up on Oda. She didn't realize what was happening until her body, and health, began wasting away.

The scariest thing, she said, was that as she grew thinner, she received positive reinforcement from friends and family. "As my weight came down, everyone praised me for being fit and healthy," she said, shaking her head. "What they didn't know was that the only way I could be that weight was by eating less than 500 calories a day and exercising compulsively. I've never been more unhealthy in my life. My body, as well as my life, fell apart."

It started with loneliness and a feeling of isolation. Oda was teaching English in a suburb of Osaka, Japan, where she had few friends and no one she could really talk to. She filled the empty hours with compulsive exercise, running every morning, swimming at lunchtime, walking to and from work instead of using the subway.

"You get sucked into it and don't really see what's happening to you. It's socially OK to be obsessed with fitness and thinness — but, you know, it's just not OK," Oda said.

When she came home to Honolulu for a vacation, looking extremely thin, she was praised by friends and family. "Everyone said 'Wow! You look so great!' All I could think of was, 'Gee, I must have looked really bad before.' My whole life was falling apart, and I was getting all this positive reinforcement for it."

"When I was sick, I looked normal," Oda said. She suffered from anorexia for about a year, until friends in Japan encouraged her to start eating again. She could not eat normally and began to binge. The binging led to purging, and she became bulimic.

Her boyfriend in Japan, as well as friends who had suffered from anorexia, finally recognized what was going on. They convinced Oda to return to Hawai'i for treatment. "I'm not aware of a single treatment facility for eating disorders in Japan," Oda said.

She came home and got into a treatment program.

Then cam kite-surfing

Oda credits kite-surfing and the help of health professionals with saving her life. "I wanted to be able to kite better, and that gave me the motivation to eat better," Oda said.

Nutritionist Kristen Lindsey-Dudley of Nutrition Therapy Consultants, and psychiatrist Dr. Neal Anzai, who specializes in eating disorders, have been working with Oda for three years.

"We started working on stabilizing her eating and normalizing her weight," said Lindsey-Dudley. "She had lost one third of her body weight. She was obsessed with food and was binging and purging. She had to return to a more normal weight for her, which was really challenging, as it was out of the normal range (according to BMI charts) and she felt extremely self-conscious about it. ... The last few years we continued to work on not using food for emotional reasons and body image."

It's important to look at food as fuel that enables the body to function optimally, Oda said. "If I had the chance I would teach young women about nutrition and how your body needs proteins and fats and carbs.

"If you don't eat, your body fights back. Eat healthy and in moderation, and educate yourself. It's about what your body can do for you if you listen to your body and give it the nutrients it needs so you can use it to your best advantage."

Always an athlete

Eating disorders are particularly common among female athletes, as there is so much pressure to look perfect. "As an athlete, you get perfectionistic and feel like you're not achieving and everyone can see it," Oda explained.

"Kite-surfing actually helped me with my recovery, but being a female athlete has been especially hard for me. There is a lot of emphasis on your body and a lot of pressure, or expectation rather, for you to look a certain way. It's something I still struggle with many days," Oda said.

While Oda was at Punahou, she played basketball and participated in track and field. She began surfing late in high school, just before she went off to Colorado College.

She discovered kite-surfing when, on a flight from Japan to Honolulu, she sat next to Pat Goodman, a kite designer. "He totally turned me on to kiting," Oda said. "I took one lesson, but then had to go back to Japan. When I returned to Hawai'i, I totally got into it. I'm so grateful because before that, I was just going out a lot and staying out late. I am fortunate I found something to help me refocus."

Although she began kite-surfing just three years ago, Oda won the first kite-surfing contest she ever entered and has since placed in amateur and professional contests from Hawai'i to Australia.

Among Oda's sponsors is Girls4Sport, an organization that creates performance clothing for women (sold locally in such stores as Town & Country on O'ahu Company president Kim Ruby said Girls4Sport sponsors "women who inspire and move.

"From professional athletes to women who take their water sport seriously while pursuing careers and living real lives, G4S Team Riders are genuine athletes and role models," Ruby said.

"Nalani inspires women to go out and break new ground, in sports and in life, with her ambitious attitude."

What's next?

Kite-surfing has taken Oda to Australia, Texas and Venezuela, Austria and Belgium. ("The lakes are freezing in Europe!" Oda said.)

She has multiple sponsorships, from OffDaLip, Blue Planet Surf Gear and Girls4Sport.

However, she is pragmatic and practical. "I love traveling and hanging out at the beach and getting paid for it, but I need something more permanent and stable. Being a professional athlete doesn't last forever," she said.

In the long term, she has her sights set on dental school. "I want something challenging where I can make my own schedule," she said.

Oda's message: "Fitness is equated with thinness, but the lesson of my story is that you won't necessarily be thin even if you live a healthy, fit life."

Reach Paula Rath at 525-5464 or prath@honoluluadvertiser.com.