lthough common features of women with eating disorders include their unreal expectations of perfection and difficulty in accepting natural weight gains in the teenage years, that doesn’t mean that all ambitious high achievers are anorexics or bulimics. But every authority on eating disorders says parents and teachers should not pressure students to unrealistic goals or to perfection.

Teenage gymnasts are often taught that becoming a woman, getting periods and the change in body shape is their enemy; to be unnaturally stunted is good; and that the definition of their success will be measured by whether they become Olympians. Gymnasts often grow up to ten centimetres when they stop their training and dieting at the end of puberty.

A sports psychologist to some of Australia’s elite male and female athletes (including Olympians) told me he believes dozens of our top athletes suffer anorexia and bulimia. He said anorexia tended to be a feature of distance and artistic sports such as gymnastics, but bulimia was prevalent across the board.

He added that lowered body fat and the loss of periods due to stress from training was ‘an accepted thing in elite sport’.

The psychologist said he tried to make athletes aware they were just going through a phase in their lives, making great sacrifices, and that they would move on to another phase. He said sometimes the athletes were not aware of all the sacrifices they were making. Some former gymnasts now say their coaches and training set them up for an eating disorder lasting into their post-gym years.