Negative feelings about body image is one of the major barriers to women and girls participating in sport.
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00:00 I think a lot of my struggles with my body image came from a product of my environment.
00:09 As an elite diver, I was surrounded by other elite divers who had a specific body type
00:15 and I think feeling the pressure to have to look like everyone else was a common occurrence
00:20 amongst a lot of our athletes.
00:22 As divers, we are in bathers in our training sessions so there's not a lot that's left
00:26 to the imagination so sometimes you can feel like eyes are on you and at competition everyone's
00:32 judging what you look like and a lot of that I guess comes from internally feeling like
00:37 that might be the case but when you're chatting amongst your friends about the same thing
00:41 and they all are having the same experience you start to believe that everyone is really
00:45 judging you on your body.
00:46 Many athletes experience body dysmorphia.
00:50 It's one of those things where, you know, regardless of what people around you say,
00:55 sometimes it does play on your mind.
00:57 You see images or you see athletes in your same sport, in the same position, looking
01:03 a certain way and it can play on your mind sometimes.
01:07 Yeah, it's extremely difficult, particularly when you're in the outside world and people
01:13 see your body and think, "Oh, your arms are bigger than mine" or "Your legs are bigger
01:19 than mine" and sometimes it can take a hit for an athlete but also we should be very
01:24 proud of the hard work we put in to be able to make sure that physically we are at our
01:31 best.
01:32 I think it's taken me a long time to be okay with myself and my body, like being disabled
01:36 and having a severe scoliosis like I've always.
01:40 There's not many people that look like me out there I would say but for me now is how
01:44 do I perform, how do I feel strength wise.
01:48 So my body image I would say is associated a lot with my sport and how I feel I'm going
01:52 to be with that now rather than looking in a mirror and being like, "Oh, you look at
01:58 your scoliosis makes you really sideways" as a child would probably tell me.
02:02 Yeah, for me it's just learning to love myself the way I am.
02:06 And the feedback from the athletes is when staff and coaches talk to them about body
02:11 shape and type and you do need to talk about that sometimes, you can't ignore it, that
02:16 they would rather words rather than lean or thin, you talk about being strong and being
02:24 capable of performing the activity in the right way.
02:27 So focusing more on those performance words rather than how you look words.
02:34 Physically am I able to do my job?
02:36 Do I go to training?
02:38 Am I able to make that sprint?
02:40 Am I able to push off and make that dive that's going to win my team the game?
02:45 That's what we should be looking at and what also is important is the support around.
02:51 Also important I guess to have good role models which I try and be one in my sport now and
02:54 chat to the kids who are still at school and going through puberty and just letting them
02:58 know that their body changing is completely normal and we're not supposed to look like
03:03 we looked when we were 12, when we're 18 and everything that's happening with our bodies
03:07 is perfectly normal.
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