There’s a phrase I heard a lot growing up in diving: “Fat don’t flip.” It wasn’t just a joke. It was a doctrine. A standard. A weapon.

From the outside, elite sports look like dreams built on discipline, talent, and opportunity. What they don’t see are the scars — emotional, psychological, and sometimes physical — that so many of us carry long after the competition ends. What they don’t hear are the whispered comments from coaches about our bodies, the praise for our weight loss during heartbreak, or the silence when we cry behind locker room doors.

I was a Division I scholarship athlete, a national champion, a world champion, a coach of elite-level athletes and now, a professor and advocate. But none of those titles ever quieted the voice in my head that still panics at the sight of a scale or the thought of putting on a swimsuit.

Because long before I earned letters after my name, I was taught something much louder than empowerment: I was taught shame.

I remember stepping on the scale at 118 pounds and crying. I had trained 20 hours a week, added extra workouts on my own and taken extra fitness classes. But 118 felt like failure. My coach wouldn’t say “you’re fat.” He didn’t have to. His silence did the work. The expectations did the work. The way his eyes looked up and down my body did the work.

I learned that “success” meant squeezing into a suit two sizes too small while pretending not to flinch when a coach yanked it higher on my hips, exposing more of my 12-year-old body because that’s what “real divers” wore. That’s what........

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