The Independent/London

Ennis: not worried
The row over remarks about the champion heptathlete Jessica Ennis being “fat” escalated as other female athletes spoke of similar taunts.
The comments were reportedly made to Ennis’s coach last year by a high-ranking official in UK Athletics who said she was “carrying too much weight”.
The 5ft 4in poster girl for Team GB, who is one of the best hopes for Olympic gold, weighs 8 stone 13lb.
She laughed off the remarks about her famously honed physique, reportedly made to Tony Minichiello. “It’s not something I worry about,” she said. “I can just kind of brush it off and ignore it.”
Fellow athletes sprang to Ennis’s defence.
Louise Hazel branded the remarks “a disgrace” and said she had been subject to similar harassment about her weight. “It’s not a nice feeling to be called overweight,” Hazel said. “Some people think that you have to look like you are completely emaciated to actually be in physical shape and that’s not the truth. There needs to be more support.”
Minichiello told The Guardian that “people in high positions ... should know better” and that Ennis did not need distractions in the run-up to the Games.
But Minichiello played down the dispute by pointing out that he did the interview with the paper in November and saying: “I think the biggest problem I’ve got this week is counting to 10.”
Susan Ringwood, chief executive of b-eat, the eating disorders association, said the comments were “completely unacceptable” and “we know they are unhelpful to anyone, let alone someone in peak physical perfection”.
Top athletes have a distinctive body composition, she said. “They have much more muscle, which is heavy, and very little body fat. You can be slender and muscled and appear to be heavy for your height. The nature of an athlete’s sport also affect their body shape. Sprinters need explosive power with lots of muscle, while marathon runners need lean bodies built for endurance. Heptathletes such as Ennis require a bit of everything.”
The remarks are all the more surprising because sporting bodies are increasingly sensitive to female body image issues. On its website the IOC dispenses advice, warning of “scientific evidence that, under certain circumstances, the healthy body image of some female athletes can suffer through sport”.