When Rebecca Adlington became the first british swimmer to win two Olympic gold medals since 1908 at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, she should have come home to a hero’s welcome. “The comments started off as being really nice and congratulatory, but as my following grew, they became really personal. It was stuff you wouldn’t say to your worst enemy,” she tells Stylist, explaining the body-focussed trolling she’s put up with for over a decade.“Had it been about my performance in the pool, I would have taken it, but it had nothing to do with my swimming ability. I didn’t know that you had to look like a model and be a size 8 to be a swimmer.

Many of the comments compared her to a whale or dolphin “because they swim fast”, while the comedian Frankie Boyle went on Mock The Week and said Adlington “looks like someone who’s looking at themselves in the back of a spoon”. Needless to say, that “joke” exacerbated the trolling that she went on to endure.The swimmer is far from being the exception. A recent BBC Sport Survey found that 30% of sportswomen have been trolled on social media – up from 14% in 2015. As a result, 78% of female professional athletes are self-conscious about their body image. To repeat: we’re talking about sportswomen here – Olympians, women with elite levels of fitness, strength and endurance. If women whose careers are centred around health and fitness are being made to feel self-conscious about their bodies, what hope is there for the rest of us? Of course, it’s not just “fat-shaming” that’s the issue.

“Since This Girl Can launched in 2015, we’ve learnt a great deal about women’s barriers which are exacerbated when they are subject to inappropriate messages around their appearance,” explains Kate Dale, Campaign Lead for This Girl Can. “Professional women athletes calling for help shows that even in elite spaces and at a peak level of activity, fear of judgement can still exist - and for good reason. No matter how strong, successful or confident we feel, it’s not always easy to shrug off insults, abuse or name-calling. And it’s not acceptable either. Something has to change and perhaps it starts with social media companies taking more responsibility and brands seeing female athletes as valuable spokeswomen. 

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MoJoManuals addressing the wide range of issues which teenage girls face as they engage in competitive sport. Predicated on 'Physical Literacy' but also cover a range of other emotive issues such as: body image, diet, fit or thin, social media, training with menstruation, coaching style etc. – which impact how girls engage/drop out of sport – and potentially go on to be elite athletes and confident, mature young women outside of sport.