THE past couple of years have seen an increase in awareness from sporting governing bodies about their duty of care to their athletes and in keeping with this, Scottish Athletics has announced that it will hold an education seminar called ‘Supporting Athletes with an Eating Disorder’ on Friday the 12th of January in Edinburgh, the evening before the Great Edinburgh Cross-Country event takes place.

Earlier this year, former Scottish international high jumper, Jayne Nisbet revealed that she had suffered from eating disorders throughout her career, before going on to release a book, ‘Free-ed’ about her experiences.

Nisbet will be one of the speakers at the seminar and will talk about her experience of suffering from an eating disorder, as well as sharing what she has learnt from the challenges she faced and her subsequent recovery.

Also present will be Louise Capicotto, who is a BPS Chartered Sport and Exercise Psychologist in-training based at Loughborough University and is an Academy Coach at the Female Coaching Network.

She has conducted research into the support of athletes with disordered eating and has personal experience of eating disorders spanning over a decade during her time competing as an athlete within track and field and power-lifting.

Elite sport is a cut-throat environment and the prevalence of eating disorders is significantly higher amongst elite athletes than it is amongst the general population. This Scottish Athletics seminar is open to athletes themselves, as well as coaches and parents,, who often can have a major role to play in halting the progress of an eating disorder, as well as spotting the development of one.

There will be a number of topics covered on the night, including raising awareness of eating disorders and how this can affect, recognising the signs and how to communicate with the athlete, availability of support and resources for parents, coaches and athletes, including current treatment issues for athletes, and how athletes could be better supported when returning to sport.