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This paper was written for Cluster 73 as a multidisciplinary research assignment about how social factors may impact mental illness in a specific population. It explores how societal expectations of women’s beauty and the culture of figure skating may influence the development, presentation, and treatment of anorexia nervosa in American women’s figure skaters. Ideas of socially desirable body image are amplified for figure skaters, who must maintain their figure to be athletically competitive and appear aesthetically pleasing on the ice. Coaches also play an important role in influencing skaters’ body image, and a reform in coaching practice is vital to changing outcomes for skaters at risk of developing anorexia.