Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, May, 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Background: The American College of Sports Medicine defines the female athlete triad (FAT) as interrelated components of energy availability, menstrual function, and bone mineral density. High school athletes have likely not experienced a lengthy duration of exposure to disordered eating, amenorrhea, and low bone density compared to older athletes because of their young age; the purpose for screening and creating awareness is to educate before negative consequences reach full effect later in life and running career. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to screen high school distance runners for awareness and baseline knowledge of the components of FAT. Methods: Four surveys submitted to high school female athletes assessing FAT knowledge, a questionnaire assessing triad risk factors, calcium intake, and demographic information. Results: Significant findings include faster 5k times with a body mass index (BMI) under 18.5 mg/kg², increased calcium intake correlated with positive awareness to the FAT, and a higher FAT knowledge score correlating with triad awareness. Conclusion: The results from this study did not show a relationship between BMI and menstrual history, 5k time and menstrual history, and BMI and calcium intake. All of the athletes' responses indicated having one or more components of the triad. Education of the components of the triad is needed in high schools, and screening should be incorporated into preparticipation health physicals so as to ensure athletes minimize their risks for stress fractures and impaired bone health.

As the higher education system expanded during the 1980s and early 1990s increasing numbers of mature women undertook the transition to graduate life. Such women also have a potentially prominent role as employees in the labour market of the mid-1990s in which the workforce is described as both feminised and "greying". Yet the dominant framework of research on the transition of graduates to the labour market, despite its recognition of the influence of structural factors of difference among graduates, has paid scant attention to the experiences of mature female graduates. This study begins the process of redressing that situation by adding both quantitative and qualitative data on the labour market outcomes of becoming a mature female graduate. The study's methodology is informed by feminist critiques of mainstream social research, and a central concern is to prioritise the perspectives of participants. The 137 women whose voices are represented in this dissertation entered first degree study on non-vocational courses, full or part-time, at or above the age of 21. They graduated from the University of Wolverhampton in 1994 and 1995. From their perspectives the transition entails considerably wider questions than those posed directly in relation to employment. Rather, the issues involve a complex interrelationship between structural and situational factors and the graduates' responses to these. Therefore the scope of the study incorporates questions of agency, understood as an aspect of identity. Escape, resilience, adaptation and marginality are core features of the findings connecting the three alternative forms of analysis presented. In these the graduates are first viewed collectively, then re-grouped in accordance with issues of age, gender, social class and ethnicity, and, finally, removed from categories in order to explore issues of identity and diversity. These analyses are then argued to be complementary perspectives that illustrate a possibility of moving beyond dichotomous approaches to understanding women's lives. The study concludes that the composite mature female graduate, Educated Rita, may be located and identified by addressing questions of structure and agency, similarity and difference, and that she considers the transition to be one in which she moves on

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