DOES SHAPE AND SIZE MATTER?

Current this story since we are in the midst of the Olympics and the same old size and weight and appearance story. People come in all shapes and sizes, life would be pretty boring if we all conformed to the same appearance. What's important is a balanced diet and cardiovascular fitness.

LONDON (Reuters) - American weightlifter Holley Mangold tips the scales at 346 pounds (157 kilograms) and she is proud of being the heaviest woman at the London Olympics.

Mangold, 22, who competed in the women's 75 kilogram-plus division, is one of growing number of women athletes speaking out at their frustration with the public scrutiny of their body size and image rather than their fitness and skills.

At the 2012 Olympics, a list of top female athletes have hit back at critics who have called them fat including British heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis, Australian swimmer Liesel Jones, and the Brazilian women's soccer team.

For Mangold, her weight is a something to be proud of.

"Between my team mate (Sarah Robles) and I, I think we both showed you can be athletic at any size," said Mangold whose Twitter profile has the tagline "Loving life and living big!"

"I'm not saying everyone is an athlete but I am saying an athlete can come in any size."

Mangold, who suffered a wrist injury three weeks ago, came 10th in a field of 14 on Sunday, watched by her NFL-playing brother Nick, centre for the New York Jets. Robles came seventh.

The 2012 Olympics have been hailed as the 'Women's Games' for including women in all sports and from all national teams with campaigners hoping this will lead to more role models in sport and increase female participation in physical activity.

The Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation (WSFF), a UK charity aiming to get more women into sport to build self-esteem and confidence, said only 12 percent of British girls at age 14 were doing enough exercise to meet recommended guidelines.

WSFF Chief Executive Sue Tibballs said their research found negative body image was consistently cited as a barrier for girls participating in exercise as popular culture gave out the message it was more important to be thin than fit.

She said this negative attitude over body image was also applied to women athletes at the Olympics who are in peak physical condition with healthy body images but still come under fire for being fat.

EATING DISORDERS RIFE

"Women athletes will regularly get comments about their appearance although men won't," said Tibballs.

"This really adds to the pressure on women athletes, many of whom already have a disordered attitude towards foods because they are in a controlled routine where weight is a key issue."

British triathlete Hollie Avil, who competed at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, quit high-level sports in May for the sake of her health after the recurrence of an eating disorder brought on by a coach telling her she was too fat.

Tibballs said it was hard to believe that Ennis, poster girl of the London Games with a rippling washboard stomach, was called fat and accused of carrying too much weight by a high-ranking UK athletics official ahead of the Games.

Ennis, 26, won gold for Britain on Saturday.

Australia's three-times gold medallist swimmer Leisel Jones's figure was questioned by some Australian media before London, who suggested she did not look as fit as at Beijing in 2008.

This sparked an angry reaction from team mates and an online uproar about body image and what constitutes fit or fat.

"I'm embarrassed by the Aussie media having a go at Leisel, one of Australia's greatest Olympians. Support athletes don't drag them down," fellow swimmer Melanie Schlanger tweeted.

"U can't judge fitness from looks anyway and how about we don't criticize at all."

Jones helped Australia win a silver medal in the medley relay in London.

British swimmer Rebecca Adlington, who won two bronze medals at London, told reporters she was going to avoid reading Twitter comments during the Olympics because so many were insults about her appearance.

The Brazilian women's soccer team were called "a bit heavy" by the coach of the Cameroon team after the South Americans won their game against the African nation 5-0.

British weightlifter Zoe Smith won fans when she hit back at attacks on Twitter saying she looked like a "lesbian" and a "bloke", addressing her critics as "chauvinistic, pigheaded blokes who feel emasculated (as) we .. are stronger than them".

"We don't lift weights in order to look hot," said 18-year-old Smith, who set at new British record at London where she came 12th in the women's 58kg class.

"We, as any women with an ounce of self-confidence would, prefer our men to be confident enough in themselves to not feel emasculated by the fact that we aren't weak and feeble."

Maggie Brown (Author)

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SIZE ZERO DIETS

The teenage years are important years for storing nutrients to see women through old age. It's extremely important to build up enough Calcium to prevent osteoporosis later on in life. Poor nutrition can also cause problems with fertility and whats the point of starving yourself of nutrients to find your hair has fallen out and you have bad skin and bleeding gums and boils because you are anaemic. Not to mention lethargy.

Rather than have regular exercise, which will burn up excess calories and tone muscles and give a glow to the complexion many teenage girls would rather starve themselves or go on their version of a calorie reducing diet. What they fail to realise is they are storing up trouble for themselves later on, when it will be too late.

Something else I have noticed is that diet and nutrition part of home economics is no longer given much attention in schools. Where is this education going to come from? Many of their parents both work and rely on processed convenience foods, and they have no idea if their daughters have skipped lunch at school. Education is the key and it should be the parents to instill in their daughters not just a balanced diet and regular exercise but to explain why this is important. That this is their insurance policy for their fertile years and later life.

Size zero diets 'ruining girls' health' warns watchdog over teenagers copying celebrity role models

Teenage girls are wrecking their health with 'size zero' diets, according to an official report.
They are shunning protein and dairy foods in an apparent effort to keep as thin as their celebrity role models.
The study found that 46 per cent of teenage girls consume too little iron, putting them at risk of anaemia and the associated tiredness and lethargy.

Teenage girls, image on left posed by model, are shunning protein and dairy foods in an apparent effort to keep as thin as celebrity role models, such as Kate Moss

The diets of a similar percentage are also low in magnesium and selenium, lack of which can lead to insomnia, severe headaches and mood swings.
Only 7 per cent of girls are eating the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

And the great majority are failing to consume enough oily fish, which contains the omega 3 necessary for a healthy heart and nervous system.

The report from the Food Standards Agency also found that teenage girls were significantly more likely to smoke and drink than boys their age.

Alison Tedstone, the agency's nutrition expert, said: 'Teenage girls are one of the groups in the population that stand out as having a poor diet.
'Teenage girls, particularly, don't eat enough. For example, they don't have very much dairy. We are talking about a poor quality of diet overall.
'Everyone recognises this is a group that needs to do better.'
Worryingly, more than a third of teenage girls were found to be overweight and a fifth are obese.
Dr Tedstone said this was true of adults too: 'Huge proportions of the population remain overweight or obese. The figures haven't changed.
'There isn't a golden bullet out there for changing diets, you need to do a whole range of things.That's what the Government has been doing, but we recognise it is a long haul.'
Twelve per cent of girls aged 13 to 15 reported drinking at least once a week - three times the level for boys of the same age.
And 29 per cent said they had smoked at some point, compared with 16 per cent of boys.

Janet Treasure, an eating disorders expert, said a 'size zero' obsession could be leading young girls to swing between starvation diets and junk food binges.
She said the fashion industry's obsession with catwalk thinness left models at high risk of eating disorders yet millions felt inspired to try to copy them.
Professor Treasure, who is based at King's College London, said: 'Controlling weight and shape has become a moral imperative for many young girls. It is almost a sign of goodness to be slim.
'The brain is undergoing a great phase of development from 12 to 25 and it needs a proper balance of oils and nutrients.
'If you impair that critical phase, moods become less regulated, you have more difficulty understanding other people and you become less flexible in your thinking.
'There is a risk of getting into a starve and binge routine which is very unhealthy and has been rapidly increasing in recent generations.'
Supermodel Kate Moss caused outrage last year by saying 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels'.
And there was uproar in 2006 when Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos died from heart failure caused by anorexia.
She reportedly followed a diet of lettuce and Diet Coke in the three months before her death.
Tam Fry, chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, said: 'The poor diet of teenage girls is a hugely serious crisis.
'We need girls to eat properly in order that they are prepared for motherhood.'
The FSA's national diet and nutrition survey found that the national diet had not improved despite a decade of Government campaigns on healthy eating.
The researchers found that more than a quarter of men and one in seven women were regularly drinking twice the maximum recommended amount of alcohol.
And only around a third of adults were following the five a day rule.
Teenage girls are eating twice the amount of sweets, chocolates and sugary drinks that their mothers had consumed when young.

Maggie Brown (Author)

Visit Amazon's Maggie Brown Page

Find all the books, read about the author, and more.

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