AMANDA Woodrow, 25, is a runner from Edinburgh who had anorexica athletica for eight years.
A national schools champion at 800m by the age of 14, her eating disorder "snowballed" after a remark made by a former coach that her thighs were "a bit thick".
Woodrow, pictured below, said: "I have always been really funny about food, but I think as I got more successful I became more conscious of it. Then it became a mechanism to stay at the top.
"It was never about appearance, it was never an aesthetic thing, it was always for performance benefit for me."
Woodrow said it became increasingly hard to recover from injury and she left the sport for a few years. When she came back she began running on the road instead of the track, which gave her more chances to over-exercise. She eventually sought help from a doctor after realising she was "exhausted". Her recovery was helped by counselling and cognitive analytical therapy.
Woodrow has been back running for a year and now competes in the 1500m and 3000m with Edinburgh Athletics Club. "I am so grateful to be able to run again," she said.
But she wants more awareness to be raised.
"Lynsey Sharp [who won silver in the 800m on Friday] was the only girl who beat me as a junior," she said. "People need to be aware so that more girls don't end up on my side, and more girls end up like Lynsey."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article