A few weeks ago I recorded a
podcast with West Ham captain
Gilly Flaherty. She described
how every morning she lifts up
her top and checks her stomach
in the mirror. Does she have
abs? Is she feeling fat? It is a
habit that began when a coach
made a comment about her
weight; it has stayed with her
ever since.
Search Sheryl Sandberg’s
bestseller Lean In, or a book of
mindful mantras, and not one
would advise you to start the
day by scrutinising your
appearance. And yet, a study by
Glamour magazine in 2013
found that 97 per cent of women
had at least one negative
thought about their body
every day.
Flaherty is a professional
footballer, she is strong and fast,
powerful and lean – you could
practically grate cheese on her
cheekbones. If even the athletes
who fit mainstream ideas about
what an athlete looks like still
worry about their appearance,
surely we have reached a point
of body dysmorphia saturation.
Of course the struggle
becomes that bit harder if you
do not fit into the mainstream
beauty aesthetic. What if you
are an athlete who does not
have a six-pack? A high jumper
with short legs? A tall gymnast?
A yogi whose extraordinary
moves are accompanied by soft
belly rolls?
All of these examples exist,
which is precisely what is so
wonderful about the human
race. And where better to
showcase that than in sport?
Jessica Ennis-Hill is the petite
athlete who could jump (almost)
two metres. Helen Glover stood
on tiptoe to sneak into the
Olympic talent programme for
rowing and went on to become
one of Britain’s best ever rowers.
Despite her diminutive frame.
Simone Biles tore up the notion
that the best gymnasts are
white, and Alysia Montano
made global headlines when she
ran in a national championship
800m race while eight months
pregnant, her tight belly
pushing proudly out from under
her pink running vest.
I can relate to Flaherty’s
morning mirror routine. Like
many women, I spent most of
my life worrying about what I
looked like. Then I became a
mother, and that is where I
found my liberation. Finally I
viewed my body for what it
could do, not what it looked
like. As my belly stretched and
grew, I marvelled at the bump
and for the first time in my adult
life I stopped worrying about
having a flat stomach, and
celebrated having a round one.
How much longer can we go
on poking, judging and
torturing women about how
they look? It is time for a
change. Or as this month’s TWS
interviewee Jessamyn Stanley
so wisely puts it: “Your life is
bigger than your pant size.”Anna
Kessel
A note from our
Women’s Sports
Editor
ur
rts
Wasps players explain to
Kate Rowan how their sport
has helped them conquer
self-esteem issues in an
environment where women
can express themselves
A
draughty sports hall in
Acton, west London, is
the scene for a photo
shoot with a difference.
Rugby is a rare example
of an elite team sport
where a size eight and size 18 can
share the same dressing room, so at
a time when body image has
become an integral part of the
discourse around women in sport,
Wasps players are making a
statement by proudly showing the
diversity of body types in their
squad in a series of exclusiveportraits taken for Telegraph
Women’s Sport.
Each player has a story to share
of feeling self-conscious. Mica
Evans, a mental health nurse from
Devon, was hyper-aware of being
“chubbier” than her peers. German
second row Nora Baltruweit was
mortified about being taller than
most boys in her class at school.
Swedish wing Tova Derk, who
has played for the Barbarians, was
labelled “meaty” by her brother, a
word that haunted her for years.
Fly-half Lizzie Goulden, a lawyer
from New Zealand, refused to show
off her arms until she was 20 due
to wanting not “to look like a man”.
She giggles about the culture
shock of her English team-mates
stripping in the shower as Kiwis
tend to be more modest, wearing a
sports bra and shorts, while back
row Elizabeth Crake admits how
outside rugby circles she can feel
self-conscious of her broad
shoulders and athletic physique.Sitting in a circle with the five
women, it is like witnessing a
support group, albeit with a lot of
laughter, such is the confessional
and frank nature of the
conversation as the players reveal
how they believe their sport can
help to shift attitudes.
“We have to redefine what it
looks like to be a man and what it
looks like to be a woman. You can
be a strong woman,” Evans says.
As a 13-year-old, Crake longed to
fit in with the mid-2000s beauty
ideal of a svelte size-zero figure.
She struggled with her self-esteem;
felt bigger than her classmates.
Then she discovered rugby and
developed a new perspective
towards her body. “It was a
vulnerable age when I picked up
rugby in terms of societal
pressures. I wanted to be 6st and
skinny,” the 24-year-old dentist
says. “I found rugby at the right
point because I felt like I was split.
Rugby stopped me going down theAll together now:
Wasps players
(bottom row, far
right, and left to
right) Lizzie
Goulden, Nora
Baltruweit, Tova
Derk, Mica Evans
and Elizabeth
Crake believe
rugby can help
shift body-image
attitudesHow rugby is
2 *** Friday 16 August 2019 The Daily Telegraph
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