Running Herself Ragged Athlete's Dangerous Obsession

The young track star was on the road to ruin

- Steve Landells

As a national athletics champion and co-founder of a successful plant-based food company, Rosa Flanagan has a healthy lifestyle that is an inspiration to all women.

Yet the 23-year-old Olympic hopeful and business entrepreneur has not always been the athletic, robust and confident woman she is today.

Early in her track career, Rosa became obsessed with her weight. She regularly deprived herself of food and was on the cusp of an eating disorder as her weight plunged to a skeletal 43kg.

“I was over-training in pursuit of getting better and I wasn’t fuelling my body for all that extra work I was doing,” Rosa explains.

“I had not gone through puberty and had completely neglected my body. I got to really low weight and then became overwhelmed with body image. It became a vicious cycle.”

Despite her severe obsession with food and exercise, Rosa enjoyed great success as a teenage athlete. She regularly won age-group national titles and represented New Zealand at the 2015 athletics World Championships.

Scary steps

However, putting herself under enormous pressure to perform and starving herself of food not only impacted her body but affected her mood too, becoming short-tempered and selfish.

She explains, “I was completely isolating myself from people, constantly consumed with how much exercise I had done each day.”

Rosa would even avoid engagements with friends that revolved around food. Her mother and tight support team, including her coach Maria Hassan, became increasingly concerned, but for a long time, Rosa ignored the warning signs.