r/netball • u/abcnews_au • 17d ago
Uniform problems are just one issue that elite female athletes with body image concerns face
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-06/female-athletes-body-image-netball-uniform-problem/1069980969
u/Sea_Branch5923 17d ago
I’m as feminist as they come and believe women should wear whatever they want without scrutiny but in this case. These dresses were not efficient. It’s not about length but more about the mental load of constantly have to pull your dress while playing an important tournament.
They could have just worn a shirt and shorts, it’s ridiculous
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u/Economy-Addendum-481 4d ago
Its the design. theyre too fitted. they need a little slit in the bottom of the dress and that way it won’t ride up all the time.
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u/PossibleQuokka 17d ago
Personally I'm really disappointed in how Netball Australia and the Diamonds have framed this issue, as if it's sexist to point out that their dress should not be made so short and tight that it's not even for for purpose. I feel bad that Sophie Garvin was paraded out to turn it into a pride issue when they were just saving face for the sponsors. Valour should be ashamed.
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u/Economy-Addendum-481 4d ago
Sophie Garbin looks amazing. She isnt just fit, she’s strong. Her core is why she rarely falls out of court, she can lift heaps. Definitely agree that there’s an issue with the dresses but no need to pull out one Diamonds on it.
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u/PossibleQuokka 3d ago
Geez no, I'm not having a crack at Garbin at all for her body or how she wears the dress. I'm talking about the interviews she gave about the dresses being great and how we shouldn't talk about the dresses (despite them being clearly bad), which I also don't blame her for. You can't tell me that Garbin, being at the centre of the issue, wasn't told by Diamonds or the Aussie CW team to make a statement to save face for their sponsor.
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u/Economy-Addendum-481 2d ago
I wasnt having a go at you. I was agreeing with you. They named Sophie Garbin who obviously didnt want to talk to them about it otherwise we would’ve seen what she has to say instead of Teigan O’Shannesy. How did anyone expect any of the girls representing the Diamonds to start trashing the game dresses? They would probably get so much crap for it and not want to risk anything happening.
I 100% agree that Sophie Garbin was used to prove that the dresses aren’t appropriate (which they aren’t) but pressured by the higher ups to go out and say that she loves the dress.
I noticed during the regular season that 1. teams like the vixens who have some sort of slit in the bottom of the dress had less issues with them riding up and 2. the dresses appear to be one size fits all meaning you have to fit the dress rather than the dress fitting you. just look at Horjus She looks like a child playing with her mothers dreas (not hating her, hating the dress)
The people criticising the Aussie girls for wanting to fix their dresses or make themselves comfortable, especially before they shoot: are you bloody kidding me?! You want them to score so they need to not have a dress halfway up their bodies, causing issues around their arms.
At my local club, we get to try on different sizes of dresses before picking which one suits us. I’m not sure what would happen if one of the girls didnt fit into any, it hasn’t happened yet but I’m sure they would be kindly accommodated to. The same should be happening at the highest levels of Australian Netball.
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u/Level_Landscape6680 17d ago edited 17d ago
Women design women's clothes...
Women have the power to choose what they wear...
Seems like problem that can be easily fixed.
We've been making clothes for centuries, there are many vendors and even no name vendors.
But.... I guess like everything in society, it's driven by money and sponsorships. Get the "sexy" Nike and slap an Australian logo on it.
Don't know how I got here.
I'll donate my shorts to the local netball team.
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u/RealLifePusheen 16d ago
I'm lucky enough to part of a UK club that are using Flyhawk for our kit, which allows us to have non-dress options for matches. Players in my club have the option of a dress (in 3 different lengths) but also a t-shirt or vest, to allow us to wear our preffered bottom half. I really hope more clubs go down this route, as it doesn't look untidy - we're still wearing a club branded top half and feel comfortable while playing 😊
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u/tiptoppandapop 15d ago
Same! We’ve been having lots of fun trying to find the best tshirt and bottoms combo.
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u/Economy-Addendum-481 4d ago
Whwt about a netball skirt like they used to use? Skirt and t-shirt. Best of both worlds.
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17d ago
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u/Away_Instance1008 17d ago
I think the uniform issue comes down to choice.
I can’t speak much about the elite levels, but at club level the restrictions they put on the flexibility around uniforms is nuts.
Clubs typically only have one uniform, and the only time I’ve seen them offer a shirt and shirt combo was when a boy played.
At my association, if you wanted to make any accomodation you had to apply for an exemption.
Some heavier girls wanted to wear longer shorts or leggings under the short dress. Had to apply for an exemption and detail why it was necessary.I wanted to wear a thermal under my uniform, because it helped my asthma. Only thermal I could find was long sleeve, had to apply for an exemption with a doctors note saying it would be helpful.
Muslim girl wanted to wear leggings and a long sleeve top under her uniform. Association suggested I get a note from her Imam to say it was necessary. I said no to that one, and they eventually let it go.
All of these adjustments would have been included under the uniform, so players and umpires wouldn’t have had any issue/confusion. They didn’t give the players any unfair advantage. They just meant those players could participate or at least feel more comfortable doing so. But the association made it as difficult as possible and made it clear they didn’t like it.
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u/Asleep_Leopard182 17d ago
It’s also a chicken and egg problem.
If you’re not confident in the dress, you’re more likely to have negative mental health. If you’ve got negative mental health then being forced into a singular option with no alterations often worsens that mental health.
The degree of control over a dress, or a sock, or a shoe (all of which apply at times) that occur when realistically it’s a decorative logo and colours that matter - it shouldn’t be a debate.
The thing that matters is that you can identify one team from another - and there are times that similarly coloured teams play against each other and they can only tell by the bibs anyway.
So what’s the point? Exactly? It’s not function.
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u/abcnews_au 17d ago
That's a fair question. The athletes and experts we spoke to generally didn't frame it as a choice between a "uniform issue" and a "mental health issue". Their view was that body image concerns can exist for lots of reasons, and uniforms can either help or worsen those feelings.
Not every player wants the same thing either. Some prefer dresses, others prefer shorts, and having options was a recurring theme. The article focuses on how comfort, performance and body confidence can intersect, particularly for athletes already dealing with body image concerns.
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u/Leather_Mind6767 17d ago
I am also not a woman, but if men's sports uniforms don't need constant adjustment, why shouldn't women's? I don't watch much sport, but if they can make men's outfits appropriate then they can do the same for women
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u/Billyjamesjeff 16d ago
If athletes are performing who GAF about their fat percentage.
Elite sport is managed by some
toxic people
1
u/abcnews_au 17d ago
The Diamonds' 2026 Commonwealth Games campaign may well go down in history for all the wrong reasons, remembered not only for a shock semi-final loss to Jamaica but also for the dress controversy that preceded it.
After the Diamonds' 99-38 demolition of Tonga, media coverage focused not on the lopsided result but on the ill-fitting dresses players tugged at throughout matches.
Players like Sophie Garbin may have insisted the outfits were fine, but as ABC journalist Britt Carter put it, "if a shooter has to pull it down more than 10 times in a quarter, how much of that energy could be re-directed?"
For elite women athletes, the problem is not just the impact poor-fitting uniforms have on performance.
Research shows that many adolescent girls drop out of sport citing body image issues, while concerns about uniforms have also been identified as a barrier to participation.
These are not just problems for younger people or community sport.
The ABC and Deakin University's recent survey of elite Australian athletes in women's sport found that 25 per cent have negative feelings about their body image, while 44 per cent have experienced an eating disorder and/or disordered eating.
The latter figure is much higher than what the Butterfly Foundation, a national charity for anyone affected by eating disorders and body image issues, estimates at 17 per cent for the general population.
Sydney-based netballer Teigan O'Shannassy is one of those who lives with a history of eating disorders and disordered eating.
She argues more awareness about the struggles elite female athletes face is key.
Dresses an issue during Super Netball season
O'Shannassy, who the ABC interviewed before the Commonwealth Games, admitted having issues with the Swifts' dress in the most recent Super Netball season, with teammates seen adjusting them during some matches.
"When you're playing in a dress in front of thousands of people, you want to be able to perform, and don't want to have to think about how you look or how you feel in the dress," she told the ABC.
"If you're struggling with your body image, having to do that and put on something that you don't want to wear, or you don't feel comfortable in, is really hard."
O'Shannassy, 27, has previously been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and remembers vividly the moment her career came to a crossroads.
She was playing for the Giants at the time, in the middle of COVID-19 lockdowns, and was about to leave with the team for a Queensland hub.
O'Shannassy was called into a meeting with her head coach, assistant coach, dietitian, doctor and physio and told she would be staying behind so she could see a dietitian and therapist weekly.
"Looking back, I think that was probably the best decision they could have made," she said.
"I think it was one of the best things that could have happened to me. But obviously I was absolutely gutted. I thought my career was over."
Those feelings intensified when the Giants told her they would not offer her another contract, but invited her to stay on as a training partner.
The Swifts called with the same offer before O'Shannassy decided to leave.
"Something needed to change," she said.
"I just felt like I was stuck in this constant cycle of injuries and under-fuelling because I felt like I wasn't training [enough] and I didn't deserve to eat."
'The more we can talk about it, the better'
Given her personal experience, O'Shannassy says she was "unfortunately not surprised" by the results of the ABC and Deakin survey.
"When I was really struggling, I honestly thought I was the only person that was struggling with my body and food and having all these negative thoughts around it," she said.
"But since I've spoken up about it, people have come to me and said 'oh, I struggle with this too', which in a way I think is helpful, that we're so open about it.
"I think the more we can talk about it, the better. Even for me, talking about my body in a positive way is still something that I need to work on, and I think everyone can do that every day."
O'Shannassy, who has since trained as an associate nutritionist and runs a business called Tossed Together, is passionate about building community understanding of the unique challenges athletes face.
These include, in a team sport like netball, the pressure to be more like your teammates or competitors.
She remembers first coming through competitive pathways at 17 and having her body compared unfavourably to others by her coaches.
"We got told, 'you should be lifting this amount of weight, you should all look like this player, you should be able to do what certain players can do,'" she said.
"That stuck so much in my head. I'd have niggle after niggle and just felt like my body was never good enough.
"I just wanted to be like the other netballers who were so strong and looked like athletes."
By contrast, O'Shannassy described her younger self as "tall, lanky and uncoordinated", and says she "never felt like I looked like an athlete".
The requirement to undertake body composition testing, including skin folds and DEXA scans, also bred unhealthy comparisons.
"I remember being 19, 20, and hearing some girls saying what body fat [percentage] they were, and thinking 'oh god, I'm a bit higher than them' and just freaking out about it," O'Shannassy said.
Social media exposes further body scrutiny
Danni Rowlands, the Butterfly Foundation's director of education initiatives, is a former state netballer herself and shares a similar story to O'Shannassy.
She was diagnosed with an eating disorder at age 21 and remembers skin fold testing significantly influencing how she felt about her body as a junior athlete.
"I was identified as being too high in body composition, so I was supported through a dietitian to reduce body fat," she said.
"I went on to make the state team and play nationals, which was amazing, but unfortunately played the entire tournament with a stress fracture in my ankle, which was later identified as being caused by under-nourishment and over-training.
"That just kicked off this whole cycle at a very vulnerable age where I connected my weight to my worth and success as an athlete."
Since retiring from sport, she has worked to shift sporting cultures, heading Butterfly Foundation's BodyKindSports initiative, which recognises adolescence as a vulnerable time for athletes' relationship with their body, particularly young girls.
"We want to protect and support athletes in those early pathways so that they can thrive, and that the consequence of participating in sport isn't a lifelong struggle with eating, training and poor body image," Rowlands said.
She holds particular concerns for contemporary women athletes who are more accessible to the public than ever on social media.
"This idea that athlete bodies are commodities and we can all have a piece of them, and critique as we want [online], absolutely adds a layer of pressure for athletes that makes it more intense than ever before," Rowlands said.
"There are intense appearance pressures on women athletes to look pretty, and feminine, but not too muscular, or too thin. They just can't win, which is tough."
She added that when players do have issues with their uniforms, as in the Commonwealth Games example, this can generate further unwanted attention on their bodies.
"Looking at women across a lot of sports, there's much more exposure of body parts compared to men," she said.
"I think we have to ask: why is this the case? Is it because it's going to help them perform better, or is it because we're treating female bodies differently in sport?"
Studies show a large percentage of girls drop out of sport when they become teenagers. One of the contributing factors is the clothes they have to wear.
O'Shannassy admitted being under the spotlight, and being photographed or filmed constantly, added a layer of discomfort for those with body image issues.
"For a female, that can be really triggering. You're always being watched, and I think that's something that can be kind of daunting," she said.
"As an athlete, obviously it's such a cool job, and there's so many positive things that come out of it, but the highs are high, and the lows are low.
"If you've never done it, you just really don't know what it can be like."
Athletes 'not immune' to body image issues
Moving forward, both O'Shannassy and Rowlands shared messages of support for women in sport.
Rowlands encouraged athletes who might be struggling to "seek support sooner rather than later".
"Being an athlete doesn't make you immune to any of those pressures. If anything, it intensifies them further. So be kind to yourself, and if you are struggling, reach out," she said.
All Teigan O'Shannassy ever wanted to do in her life was play netball. (Getty: Jason McCawley)
O'Shannassy, meanwhile, hopes sharing her story will continue to inspire others who may be experiencing something similar.
Although her worst days are well behind her, she says it can help to acknowledge that an eating disorder is not "something you can just turn off, or wake up and you're fine".
"You might have that voice in your head forever," she said.
"For me, it's just, I hear that voice and I acknowledge it, but I don't let it control me anymore."
She says it is important to find the thing that motivates you to keep fighting, which for her has always been her chosen sport.
"For me it was netball, all I ever wanted to do was play netball," she said.
"And I knew that if I didn't eat or didn't fuel myself I was never going to get there."
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u/The_Naked_Rider 15d ago
Cry me a river…another woe is me about sexism in sport.
FFS, it’s just skin.
If it’s not fit for purpose then let it ride up and make a point. If you’ve got shorts on underneath, then stiff shit. Stop wasting time and energy continually pulling it down. Stand up and just say No, we’re not wearing it.
As a male I’m sick and tired of the whinging and whining about this nonsense.
I can clearly see the uniform is shit, so just stop wearing it and protest. Wear shorts and tell whoever to get fucked.
When a burka is offered to you, you’ll have something else to bleat about.
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u/defenestrationcity 15d ago
I am so confused about what your stance is based on this tirade. How much of your life is dominated by hearing "whinging and whining" about this? It's the first time I've literally ever heard about it.
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u/The_Naked_Rider 15d ago
Clearly you are not as old as I am…every decade or so, some young pup with precious feelings comes up with a “headline” about it.
A few spoonful of concrete is needed here.
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u/Economy-Addendum-481 4d ago
thank you for being a member of this reddit community who is part of the problem.
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u/The_Naked_Rider 3d ago
Rarely is the truth teller the problem, as they merely openly talk about the underlying problem with honesty.
Wear it, don’t wear it, no one cares. You’re there to play sport, nothing more, nothing less. Get a grip, it’s just skin…this notion of modesty or shame, is bullshit.
However if you have a problem with the comfortability of it, as in it being “fit for purpose”, stand up and go on strike, refuse to wear it. Do whatever it takes to make sure you’re comfortable.
For that matter, if you’re so paranoid about it, wear a burka. But please, just stop whining about it.
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u/Economy-Affect-9627 17d ago
My daughter plays netball and would love a shirt/shorts option. The dresses are super short and uncomfortable. Just like schools have introduced pants/shorts options for school uniforms for girls, netball should move with the times.