In the quiet of the night, Jackson Wheeler would go for a run. For 45 minutes to an hour, he would run in place in his living room. Other nights he would hop on one foot.
Wheeler's midnight exercises were done out of guilt, if he had done only two out of three daily exercises or if he had eaten more than the strict 1300 calories a day he allowed himself.
Wheeler, the University of Hawaii men's basketball recruiting coordinator, starved himself and was a compulsive exerciser. He had a problem but he didn't know it at the time.

In a field where performance is based on stamina, endurance, speed and agility, some athletes suffer from eating disorders to control their weight. It is a problem openly talked about in the fashion world, but athletes also succumb to anorexia nervosa, or self-imposed starvation; bulimia nervosa, which is a binge-and-purge cycle; and compulsive exercising.

In 1994, Christy Henrich, a 4-foot-10 gymnast, died from anorexia and bulimia. Nicknamed E.T. for Extra Tough, Henrich missed making the 1988 Olympics by .188 of a point. She trained for the 1992 trials but was too weak to compete. She weighed 63 pounds when she died.

Alayne Yates, professor and director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Hawaii, said there is a strong correlation between eating disorders and compulsive exercising.

Abnormal eating patterns are most likely to occur in sports that emphasize leanness and body image, and in competitions where the athletes are scantily clad, said Yates.

In a recent article in the journal Eating Disorders Review, Yates said athletes who suffer from anorexia tend to increase their training while on a stringent diet, and bulimics eat more with the idea that they would burn the calories later.

Kelly Vitousek, University of Hawaii associate professor of psychology, said eating disorders are directly related to sports.

Slater helps Erin Geary, 11, do her stretching exercises at the Hawaii Gymnastics gym in Iwilei. Bulimia ended Slater's dream of becoming a professional gymnast. Photo by Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin

Vitousek, who has worked with UH athletes suffering from eating disorders, says the problem is not common but can be devastating when it strikes.

Anita Johnston, a licensed clinical psychologist, said exercise can be a substitute for purging.

"If you are running because you ate two muffins today and you decided that is above your caloric intake and you have to run five extra miles, then that is a purge," she said.

Yates characterized a compulsive athlete as someone who is a perfectionist, an overachiever with high standards.

"They usually have a certain routine they have to do every day," she said. "They run during a thunderstorm. When they don't feel good. And if they have to stop they feel as if they are bloating.

"Intellectually, they might understand that one day off is no big deal, but they still worry about it as if it is the worst thing on earth."

Compulsive exercisers have a desire to succeed, Yates said, and they encourage themselves with sayings such as " 'no pain, no gain.' That gives them oomph to get to the next step."

These health fanatics use exercise to compensate for the shortcomings in other areas of their lives.

"People who feel like they are not fulfilling their potential at work can go running," Yates said.

For some, exercising for hours at a time takes precedence over family and friends. Yates points out that the divorce rate among New York marathoners is four times higher than that of the U.S. population.

"Some athletes don't have a social life because it takes time away from their exercise," she said.

Slater goes through stretching exercises with some of her gymnastics students, left to right, Sierra Jacobs, 10, Natasha Fagasa, 10, Erin Geary, 11, and Sarah Harding, 18. Photo by Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin

"There is one runner that got his leg in a cast and tried to run with his cast on," Yates said. "Many of them will convert to something else like bicycle riding or swimming. And they may get just as compulsive about that."

Yates said these single-minded fanatics think they are invincible to health problems. She mentions Jim Fixx, a running guru in the 1980s who wrote the 1978 best-seller "The Complete Book of Running." Fixx, then 52 years old, ignored his body's signals to take it easy. He died of a heart attack during the last 50 yards of his daily run. Two of three major arteries to his heart were blocked.

Runners, swimmers, dancers, bodybuilders, gymnasts and weight lifters are in the high-risk group of becoming compulsive exercisers, according to Yates.

The only hurdles that will slow down compulsive exercisers are sickness or injury.

"It may sound extreme, but that's the reality of the problem," she said.

"If they get tendinitis, then they are lucky. It's going to take them a long time before they can get better, and by that time the compulsivity may be abated."