Topic: News: Girls Fear Sport Will Turn Them into the Hulk

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Girls Fear Sport Will Turn Them into the Hulk
By Jacquelin Magnay

Nadeene Latif is by any standard a perfect role model for teenage girls: she is smart and sunny by nature, boasting a well formed body and is successful too, having won a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in March.

But when Latif, 28, tries to promote her sport to females in high schools she is constantly turned away. More than 50 schools that have been sent letters since last July, followed by emails and phone calls, have rejected Latif's request to visit.

The sport that is so unsavoury to high school physical education and school principals? Weightlifting.

Latif, a 53 kilogram competitor and as petite as the former gymnast she once was, says it is not the issue of drugs in sport or the individual nature of weightlifting that turns the educators off. Teachers reckon girls do not want to know about weightlifting because they do not want to get big, she says. "The teachers tell me they don't think the sport is appealing to the students, and that they believe they shouldn't be doing it because of their physical development at this time [of puberty], but studies show this is when some weight bearing exercise is helpful.

"But the main reason is the girls think they will put on muscle mass and be big and ugly, when they won't look like that at all, and the teachers' attitudes reinforcing that stereotype don't help. What actually happens is you tone up, have less excess fat and look a lot better than those models in magazines."

Only one school, Bass Hill High, has had Latif visit.

None of the teenagers from that day last year has taken up the sport, but at the Commonwealth Games Latif had supportive emails and letters from four high school students she had met.

A board member of WomenSport International, Johanna Vescio, said any type of physical activity available to men should be available to women, and with obesity such a big issue, women should be exposed to as many different sports and activities as possible.

"Even if a small group of girls is attracted to weightlifting then that is beneficial," she said.

"But the issue here is body image, and we have to get away from this perception that slim, tall models are the ideal, and we should be accepting of a diversity of body types. It is quite all right to be different."