HATS off to Scottish Athletics who I believe are leading the way in tackling the problem of eating disorders in athletes with their recent event, aptly entitled ‘Supporting Athletes with an Eating Disorder’.

Fielding a very strong line-up on the night that included SW/S Frame Role Model of the Year, Jayne Nisbet, Scottish Athletics held an education session on this topic just last week and had over 70 in attendance.

Jayne, who has now retired from athletics, is no stranger to this topic as she suffered herself from bulimia and recently had a book published on the subject, FREE-ED – with the ED standing for eating disorder.

Her struggles were over a number of years and it took a lot of time for Jayne to seek professional help.

One of the overriding themes of Jayne’s book is the fact that she states, on numerous occasions, that she felt useless.

It is a delight to see Jayne now, a bright intelligent, happy young woman, who is doing her part to try and prevent other young athletes from going down the same selfdestructive pathway.

We discussed this on Tuesday night’s programme on Rocksport Radio, #letshearitforthegirls, which is an hour-long show, co-hosted by myself and Liz Clark and it was great to have Jayne on as one of our guests.

We agreed that this topic in itself merits a full programme to do it justice.

So I can confirm that it is in the planning and we intend to discuss this topic in length with, doctors, coaches and athletes themselves, who are either in the grip of an eating disorder or feel that they are vulnerable and would like some support.

Another young athlete who made the headlines down south is Bobby Clay who, in 2013, was fourth in the world youth 1500m before taking European junior 1500m gold in 2015 and finishing seventh in the world juniors 1500m in 2016.

But she was also on a pathway to self-destruct.

Bobby makes it clear that she didn’t have an eating disorder, but was driven by an obsessive desire to train harder, and become a better athlete.

Bobby didn’t listen to her coach when he raised concerns and continued on her own pathway, believing she knew best.

In her own words Bobby describes herself as: “I am 20-years-old and I have never had a period.

“I’m 20-years-old and I have osteoporosis.

“I’m 20-years-old and I have become ‘that girl’.

“The girl who over-trained.

“The girl who under-fuelled.

“The girl who we are all told about, yet we all just believe ‘it won’t happen to me’.”

Bobby is currently dealing with osteoporosis and is on HRT (hormone replacement treatment).

It is heart-breaking to think of the trauma many athletes face alone as they feel they will be judged.

The pressure to perform and conform must be immense.

And of course there is also the other side of the coin, pressure from coaches who resort to body-shaming athletes, telling them they are too fat, that they need to lose weight to perform better, to achieve their goals.

So, basically we need to have a difficult conversation surrounding this issue, we need to talk about menstruation, depression, eating disorders etc. and we need to educate coaches to look out for the early signs, as well as listening to athletes as they express their fears and concerns, and give them access to the support needed to deal with these issues.

Pressure is everywhere in life, no matter what job you do and it is important to recognise the many different ways that it can manifest itself in an individual. The more prominence we bring to the subject, the more air-time we can have to chat around this, and the more people, I hope, will search out professional help and move forward.

Recognising that you may have a problem and seeking help to deal with it is not a weakness, in fact it is the opposite, it shows strength of character and a strong desire and determination to deal and resolve the situation.

I hope anyone currently in this position can take strength from these two amazing individuals and take their next positive steps towards change.