A young and beautiful Olympian from the U.K. has to put her dream off for now due to disordered eating.
Hollie Avil, a 22-year-old triathlete from Great Britain who had dreamed of representing her country in the 2012 London Olympics, announced her retirement from her sport this week due to an eating disorder.
A former World Junior champion in the elite sport of triathlon, Avil commented on her eating disorder to the BBC: “You start cutting little things out of your diet and it all catches up with you until it possesses your life.” She attributes the onset of her disorder to an offhand comment made by the coach for another athlete in 2006. The coach told her she cut improve her swimming performance by “watching her weight” instead of training harder.
Avil was so affected by this comment that she began to skip meals and limit her diet to mostly salads. She began to see food as her enemy. Within a year she had lost about 20 pounds, a significant amount for a world-class athlete competing in a demanding sport. Although she lived with her parents, she hid her eating problems and attributed her weight loss to her training regime.
Although Avil can pinpoint the event that was the trigger for her disorder, many other factors typically contribute to the onset of an eating disorder. The stresses involved with competing in a grueling sport at an elite level and a tendency for perfectionism most likely were the root causes of her illness.
During training leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, coach Ben Bright identified Avil’s symptoms and intervened. He was able to convince her that her weight loss and diet had negatively impacted her performance. After working on recovery with a psychologist and nutritionist, she earned titles as the European and World Junior champion.
Avil was unable to complete the triathlon event during the Beijing Olympics due to an unrelated illness. She experienced a recurrence of her eating disorder in 2010. She again underwent treatment and was able to overcome her eating disorder for a second time. Unfortunately, her training was then interrupted by stress fractures and shin splints; Avil believes that these injuries were caused by bone loss associated with her self-restricted diet. This led to deep depression and ultimately prompted her decision to retire from her sport. “My health and happiness are at risk. Life is too short,” she said when announcing her retirement.
In the future, Hollie Avil would like to found a charity that would help young female athletes who are suffering from eating disorders.