Fed: Body image weighs down female athletes - Olympic medallist

AAP General News (Australia)
02-18-2005
Fed: Body image weighs down female athletes - Olympic medallist

By Angela Erini

CANBERRA, Feb 18 AAP - Triple Olympic gold medallist Petria Thomas knows what it's
like to be called fat.

The champion swimmer says some coaches are putting too much pressure on female athletes
to lose weight.

Thomas revealed today she was plagued by comments about her weight throughout her career
but she was realistic about her body shape.

She knew she would never have a waif-like figure, no matter what people said, so she
learned to live with the comments.

But Thomas is worried about the future of young athletes who may not be able to brush
off such remarks.

Coaches guilty of the practice should be better educated, otherwise there would be
devastating repercussions for young female athletes.

"Young girls are very impressionable, and if they get people telling them they are
fat all the time, that may cause problems into the future and you don't want to see that,"

Thomas said.

"There were definitely times where I was told to lose weight, or I was too fat, so
it can become an issue.

"I'm fairly sensitive to people saying those things about me, but obviously I didn't
take it too much to heart.

The Olympian's comments came after Ian Thorpe's coach, Tracey Menzies told the ABC's
Australian Story that she was hassled about her weight, which put her health at risk.

Excessive dieting and overtraining as an 18-year-old swimmer led Menzies to a poolside
collapse and more than a decade of pain.

Thomas said sport was not worth risking one's wellbeing.

"Sport is not worth compromising your health throughout your life, that should be first
and foremost for everybody," Thomas said.

"Unfortunately, people get a bit obsessed with sport at times and take it a bit too
far and it can lead to problems.

"If you get to the stage where you're dangerously underweight, or anorexic, then it's
going to cause health problems and you hope that they're not lifelong ones."

Thomas said she assumed it was not just female swimming competitors who were hassled
about their weight and the much-needed education program should be adopted for every sport.

"I hope that there is some sort of education process put into place in the future,
not only for swimming, but for all sports.

"Females, when they get older, certainly don't need anyone to tell them when they're
a little bit heavy - they know themselves.

"It's up to them to do something about it, not the coaches.

"Not all coaches are bad, there is some though unfortunately, and something needs to
be done about it."

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KEYWORD: COACHES THOMAS (PIX AVAILABLE)

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