A Gymnast’s Death Was Supposed to Be a Wake-Up Call. What Took So Long?

After Henrich’s death, many in the news media seemed to blame her for succumbing to her disease. They attributed her eating disorder to the judge’s comment alone or to a lack of common sense on her part: “Irrational Obsession Consumed Her Talent, Her Life,” read a 1994 Associated Press headline. The Los Angeles Times said that she “gave in” to anorexia and that “no one could save Henrich” because she “could not save herself.”

The idea that Henrich could have lived if she had only been stronger, experts say, is unscientific and harmful.

“She hated it as much as everyone else did,” said Moreno, her fiancé. “She didn’t want to be like this, and that was the hardest part and most tragic part about watching it.”

In 1993, Henrich explained to a reporter from her hometown paper, The Examiner, that she experienced the illness as a malevolent force separate from who she was and wanted to be.

“It feels like there’s a beast inside of me, like a monster,” she said. “It feels evil.”

A transformation delayed

In the shock that followed Henrich’s death, many broadcasters stopped listing gymnasts’ weights in television chyrons, and the United States Gymnastics Federation — the sport’s governing body, now known as U.S.A. Gymnastics — hired Thies Marshall to create an athlete wellness program.

Designed with experts and other former gymnasts, it included a referral network for eating disorder treatment; a curriculum for coaches that covered nutrition, biomechanics, sports medicine and sports psychology; and a mentoring system to pair national team members with former members who could serve as confidantes.

But U.S.A. Gymnastics cut the program’s funding around 2000, and the system regressed. Martha Karolyi — the wife of Bela Karolyi, who, in the journalist Joan Ryan’s 1995 book, “Little Girls in Pretty Boxes,” had been publicly accused of abusive training methods — was installed as coordinator of the women’s national team. Centralized training camps were established at the Karolyis’ ranch, where the team doctor, Larry Nassar, would molest athletes for years. At those camps, numerous gymnasts have said in recent years, the Karolyis forced athletes to train on serious injuries and created an environment in which gymnasts were afraid to be seen eating more than small quantities. The Karolyis have said they were unaware of Nassar’s behavior, and their attorney has denied the abuse allegations against them.