"The bone density level in my back was so low I had to cut back my running to two to three miles a day, five days a week," Aimee says.

Robyn Stuhr, an exercise physiologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery’s Women’s Sports Medicine Center in New York City, treats Aimee and women like her.

Stuhr looks for symptoms of the condition. Amenorrhea, or the loss of one’s menstrual cycle for more than three months, is one of the first clues.

"That used to be a mark of a good athlete" says Stuhr. "You’re training hard if you lose your period."

photo: justwomen.com

Long distance runners often suffer from the Female Athlete Triad.

But losing your period for more than three months is actually a sign of hormonal imbalance, says Stuhr. When an athlete stops menstruating, Stuhr looks at the patient’s eating patterns. She often finds they eat abnormally low amounts of calories, protein and calcium.

"In these very active young women, we’ve discovered these very bizarre eating behaviors that have clearly taken over the person’s life," Stuhr says. She adds that these women’s perception of their body size is very often exaggerated.