In honour of International Women’s Day, the Council of Europe’s Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS) is holding a roundtable on women’s health and sport.

Being held this morning (7 March) both online and at the Strasbourg's Palais de l’Europe, the event is hostin international experts and guests discussing major areas of concern, including physical health issues such as over-training, anorexia, issues linked to menstruation, the pelvic floor, maternity, the peri-menopause and the menopause, and mental health issues.

Co-founder of The Well HQ and former GB rower, Baz Moffat, is speaking to set out the wide range of health issues affecting female athletes.

Moffat told HCM: “My keynote is essentially saying that years ago the church said women could not do sport because we were too fragile, and if we did we would break and not be able to have children.

“And right now women are breaking because of sport. There are horror stories in the press all the time about ACL’s, fertility, brain damage, eating disorders, so we’re back to where we were!

“But it’s not because women are fragile, it’s because the system around us is. It has not been designed for us and we’re being pushed so hard into boots that don’t fit, by coaches who are not educated and with fuelling regimes designed for men.

“It’s no wonder things aren’t going so well, so I’ll obviously be calling for some action.”

Also on the agenda, Olympic athlete and sport social worker, Aauri Bokesa, will present her perspective on women’s health, based on her experience as a 400 metre specialist and basketball player, and her work with young women playing basketball.

Head of the Sports Medicine Department at Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital and president of the French National Observatory of Physical Activity and Sedentary Lifestyles, Martine Duclos, will illustrate the health benefits of sport for women throughout the different times of their lives.

There will also be two panels focusing on athletes’ lived experiences of health-related problems and on practical solutions, with a focus on increasing awareness and education, as well as overcoming obstacles.

The upcoming issue of HCM will be celebrating International Women’s Day with a Talking Point feature on removing the barriers for women to be physically active; as well as a line up of female interviewees, including Angela Rippon – talking about her campaign to get the UK active by dancing – and Frame co-founder, Pip Black will be featured in Life Lessons talking about how it felt to rebuild the brand after the pandemic.

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