Athlete Mental Health & Eating Disorders - a news & discussion thread

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Here's a follow-up to yesterday's article expanding on the disordered eating/body dysmorphia aspects of the ABC's survey results, with more in-depth contributions from both Matilda Friend and several athletes in other sports.

'How can I make my body look like that?': The pressures on elite female athletes

Throughout her career, former ice dancer Matilda Friend struggled with disordered eating and felt pressure to look a certain way. ABC's Women's Sport survey shows she isn't the only one.

www.abc.net.au

Photo caption from the linked story:

Matilda Friend thought that the way she looked would influence scores.

Unfortunately, she's right. Addressing this problem isn't just in getting the athletes to fuel themselves better - it's also in getting coaches, judges, officials, and administrators to accept different body types and not insist on an unrealistic (and unhealthy) norm.

 

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Crossposting my post from the OES-Thread:

German newspaper "Zeit" published a long story "Thin Ice", were Stefanie Pesendorfer opens up about her struggles, mentally and physically and the darker side of figure skating

https://www.zeit.de/2026/03/eiskunstlauf-stephanie-pesendorfer-olympia/komplettansicht (autotranslate works well)

In an interview with ZEIT, she speaks in detail for the first time about something that has hardly ever been discussed outside the figure skating scene. Internally, within the Austrian association, her story has already made a difference. But Pesendorfer wants to share it further. "I know I'm not alone in this. And that many young women in top-level sport feel the same way."

And then there's this phrase from her coaches, which she had never heard before and now hears over and over again: ‘Watch your weight.’ Until it sticks. ‘But all I heard was: you're too fat,’ says Pesendorfer.

There was a time when she only weighed 48 kg. She's 160 cm tall.

In 2020

Doctors diagnose a double slipped disc, saying she narrowly escaped paraplegia. ... ‘It was hell,’ says Pesendorfer. ‘But as desperate as I was, I knew one thing: I wanted to get back on the ice.’ Four screws have stabilised her spine ever since.

In 2022, she moves to Oberstdorf in Bavaria and joins a training group. But she takes her expectations with her, and on top of that there are higher costs for ice time, the coach and living expenses. She finally loses her balance and suffers a severe panic attack in her accommodation. ‘I wanted to kill myself,’ she says. Her training partners find her and call the emergency services. A few days later, she sits in a video call with several officials in the psychiatric ward. When asked if she is ill, she replies laconically: ‘No, I'm just in the closed ward.’

A lot of comments below the article show, that it is very couragous to open up, and necessary. Kudos to Stefanie for sharing