Ellie Boatman: I became obsessive very quickly and that stemmed into an eating disorder

GB Sevens player tells Dame Laura Kenny how social pressures and obsessive behaviour led to her quitting rugby and issues around food

After making her Olympic debut at Paris 2024, life is good for GB Sevens rugby player Ellie Boatman. However, it was only a few years ago that Boatman, 27, was struggling with a debilitating eating disorder which left her unable to enjoy or even play the sport she loves.
“I was going to the gym just to lose weight and do lots of cardio and basically be as small as possible,” she tells the Telegraph Women’s Sport Podcast, hosted by Dame Laura Kenny and released every Thursday. “It became really unhealthy and really obsessive very quickly.
“I was just so warped in that way of just being as small as possible and it consumed my thoughts every single day. It was no longer about being healthy and fit for a sport.”
Unfortunately, Boatman’s struggles are not uncommon. NHS statistics for 2023 show that, in the UK, the rate of possible eating problems – where an individual has an increased likelihood of broader problems or difficulties with eating – for young women aged 17 to 19 is 77.5 per cent.
In the second episode of the TWS podcast, entitled “Body Image”, the issue is discussed at length with guests Boatman, the three-time para-taekwondo world champion Amy Truesdale, and Kate Dale, a campaign director for This Girl Can at Sport England.
Boatman fell in love with rugby at the age of four and spent her childhood playing with her brother at Camberley in Surrey, never feeling particularly conscious about the fact she was often the only girl involved.
However, when she reached her teenage years, she began to realise rugby wasn’t necessarily accepted as a “girl’s sport” and that’s when she started to feel more conscious about her appearance.
“I knew then that I had a bit more muscle and was a bit stronger than the other girls around me and it definitely made me look at my own body,” she says. “And when I went to university, I really struggled with my own eating disorder, and fitness became very obsessive – I stopped playing rugby at 16.”
Being a young girl in the early 2000s meant growing up surrounded by women discussing new dieting regimes, being expected to conform to often-restrictive eating habits, and seeing magazine front covers splashed with degrading comments on celebrities’ appearances.
“I assumed that, as a female, we just have to worry about how small we’re going to be or how much weight we’re going to lose or to be on the next diet,” Boatman says. “Not how am I going to fuel myself to have enough energy not just to play sport but to live and fuel yourself for every single day.
“I remember at secondary school girls being like ‘I’m not going to eat for a few days because I want to fit into that dress for the weekend’.
“Being surrounded by those conversations at the time when rugby wasn’t cool and I was so conscious of wanting to fit in that it then, for whatever reason, just stemmed into me being really controlling over my fitness and my food. That took a long time to unlearn.”
It was when she started university that things took a turn for the worse, with Boatman increasingly restricting her eating and becoming obsessive about fitness. “It was the first time I was in charge of my food, my own room, everything like that,” she says.
“I definitely took it to the extreme and I’m not really sure why that happened but I think it just became obsessive very quickly. I don’t know if that’s the elite sports person in me, but every day I’m always criticising myself. I’m always trying to be better, trying to be perfect, and I’ve always had that kind of personality. And I think that stemmed into food and an eating disorder.”
For a long time, Boatman thought she was simply being disciplined and healthy and that everyone who was actually trying to help her was attempting sabotage. She eventually reached out to an eating disorder therapist who helped her to realise and accept that she did have a problem.
“It’s a constant thing. I wouldn’t say I’m completely recovered. I definitely get thoughts when I’m training sometimes where I’m like ‘oh my goodness, I’m eating too many carbs’,” she says.
“I call it my girl-brain side but that does still happen, it’s ongoing and I don’t think you’re always fully cured, it’s an ongoing thing you have to keep working on.”
NHS data for 2023 shows that young women aged 17 to 19 in the UK are three times more likely than young men to say that worries about eating really interfere with their life. They are also three times more likely to think they are fat when others say they are thin.
“I think it’s really important to let younger girls know that a lot of what they see [online] is one highlight reel and it’s the best version of everyone,” Boatman says. “Quite often that’s not the reality for most people.”
Boatman rediscovered her love for rugby at university in Southampton. As she reconnected with the game, she joined Trojans, her local club, and would go on to play for Saracens, Richmond, Wasps and Harlequins, before going professional at international level with the GB Sevens.
“At training I try and encourage conversations – it sounds like a really stupid phrase but me and my friends say to each other ‘pasta makes you faster’. It’s little things like that just to really encourage that actually carbs are a good thing, they’re not the devil,” she says.
And if Boatman could say anything to her younger self, or to other young girls who are experiencing similar difficulties, what would it be?
“I would say to my younger self that even when you get to your smallest, you’re going to be your unhappiest. Food is something to be enjoyed but it’s also something to make you healthy and strong,” she says.
“So to encourage that to young girls – that food is not something to be demonised. When I was at my unhealthiest and getting compliments, I was at my unhappiest. So diets are never going to be the root of your happiness at all.”
If you have been affected by an eating disorder, contact the NHS or Beat for help.