Athletes are breaking their silence about their experience of eating disorders and disordered eating. Why is this happening in an arena celebrated as the epitome of health?
Elite sport has long been consumed with the idea of the superhuman. Pushing the capabilities of the human body to its extremes in the hopes of uncovering the blueprint to engineer bodies that can jump higher, run faster and endure longer. And, as professionalism has increased, so too has the optimisation of athletes’ bodies in the quest for peak human condition.
But recent revelations that former Australian women’s cricket captain Meg Lanning cut her international career short due to struggles with disordered eating have exposed some of the cracks that have long been forming in the elite sport system.
