Women's Health June 18, 2026 0 Comments

These Women Didn’t Just Run—They Ignited a Movement That’s Reshaping Fitness Forever.

Ever wonder why amid the TikTok fad of ultra-thin celebs and nonstop GLP-1 ads, our obsession with slender bodies is spinning out of control—especially where runners are concerned? It’s a relentless spotlight that’s not just about fitness but treads dangerously close to toxic, often pushing athletes, particularly women, into the shadows of disordered eating. Having navigated the fierce terrains of both running and SEO wars, I can tell you this: real strength is built on more than just numbers on a scale or likes on a screen. It’s about smashing myths, healing past trauma, and creating a culture that values stamina, health, and self-respect over mere appearance. Join me as we dive into the stories of runners who fight the good fight every day—transforming pain into power and showing us that true speed comes from balance, not deprivation. LEARN MORE

11 min read

Trigger Warning: This story discusses eating disorders.

In the era of SkinnyTok, incessant GLP-1 ads, and celebs slimming way down, bodies—particularly thin ones—are taking center stage once again. Though social media sites are attempting to remove problematic content, the platforms are increasingly flooded with posts about weight and size—and not in a healthy way.

Some of the loudest voices against this toxic messaging are runners. It’s not a big surprise; the running community is already hyper-aware of disordered eating tendencies because they’re so common in the sport, particularly for women. The prevalence of eating disorders (EDs) in female athletes ranges from 6 to 45 percent, and rates are even higher in “lean sports,” (meaning endurance sports that encourage a lower body weight, like running), per a 2020 study in Journal of Eating Disorders. There’s also the generational trauma baked into running’s legacy. Historically, runners have been told that losing weight will make them better (including by their own coaches), even though that isn’t the truth.

That message is something Allie Ostrander, 29, a professional long distance runner and Oiselle athlete, internalized at a young age. “There’s so much pressure on us to be constantly improving,” she says. Runners, she adds, tend to be a type-A bunch. Being dedicated, detail-oriented, and regimented can certainly benefit you in the sport— but it can also go too far. “[That combination] can be a breeding ground for eating disorders,” she says.

That’s why she’s so open about her own experiences, taking to her socials (where she has over 200,000 followers) to remind people that under-eating doesn’t make you a better runner. In fact, it can seriously derail your goals.

Ostrander and other creators like her feel so motivated to speak out and make content that counters the current narrative. Here’s what they have to say.

“I can’t change my past—but hopefully I can change someone else’s future.”

Ostrander has been running since middle school, and today she competes professionally as a long distance runner. Her main event is the 3,000 meter steeplechase, a unique race that involves jumping over hurdles and puddles of water. While running has become a positive force in her life, earlier in her journey, it exacerbated the disordered eating tendencies she’d been dealing with since age 11. “The older I got, the more invested in running I became, and the more I leaned into those behaviors,” she says.

As a young athlete, Ostrander inherited a lot of dangerous advice from coaches, fellow runners, and the internet about her body. The biggest myth? That her fitness—and her speed—would decline with puberty and as she gained weight. The result was under-eating in order to prevent her period from ever starting.

“I thought [eating less] would make me faster,” she says. “Instead, I got injured a lot.” In one year, she got five bone injuries, which meant that she was getting injured basically as soon as she was cleared to return to running. Bone injuries, including stress reactions and stress fractures, can happen when an athlete isn’t eating enough and it’s a big risk for runners with EDs. “What I experienced is super, super common,” she says. “It’s totally a part of the sport for women to end up in injury cycles from trying to manipulate the size of their body and trying to fit this stereotypical runner build.”

Ostrander has been recovering from her eating disorder for over four years, but her journey hasn’t been linear—even after learning about how important it is to fuel (especially carbs, one of her fear foods) properly. “By the time that I realized how detrimental under-fueling was to my performance, it was already so ingrained,” she says. “It was really, really difficult to stop doing even though I knew it wasn’t serving me athletically.”

Even with the support of care team (therapy and treatment centers), family, and coaches, recovery has not been easy for Ostrander. She’s suffered additional injuries and has days where her running doesn’t feel as strong. But, when fueling properly, “I see major improvements much more quickly than I did before,” she says, “and that’s just because my body’s actually able to rebuild and respond to the stress that I placed upon it.”

While in recovery, Ostrander made team USA in cross country, finished seventh at the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2024, ran a 1:10:10 debut half marathon, and won the Portland Track Festival steeplechase with a 9:24 personal record.

Beyond therapy, speaking honestly (including online) about her experience has made a big difference, she says. “The most powerful tool for me is having people in my life that I can voice those thoughts and urges to honestly,” Ostrander says. “I have great friends in the running community who fully understand and empathize with body image struggles and ED triggers. They’re able to help me see the lack of logic in those thoughts, and I’m able to help them, too.” She also tries to dispel misinformation through her social posts, outright sharing the misconceptions she had about body size to show how wrong they are.

When it comes to eating disorders, Ostrander says prevention is better than treatment, so that’s why she speaks out. “I always say I can’t change my past—I can’t change what I did or what I’ve been through—but hopefully I can change someone else’s future,” she says.

And, the future, for what it’s worth, is brighter than the past for both Ostrander and the running community. “I do think that the culture around fueling properly and being a strong, durable runner is becoming more prominent than the messaging that smaller is faster,” Ostrander says. “The running world isn’t a completely healthy and non-toxic place, but I do think it’s making steps in the right direction.”

“I had the bone density of an 80-year-old woman.”

Kate Glavan, 27, a content creator and four-time marathoner, has been an athlete for as long as she can remember. It started with volleyball (her mom played professionally, so it was kind of in her DNA, she says). But these days, she spends a lot of her time running and documenting her life to her 158,000 TikTok followers. But, getting to where she is with her health and fitness wasn’t without challenges.

“I’ve always been lifting, I’ve always been an athlete, I’ve always been on a team sport,” Glavan says. “Then, in high school, I started to develop an eating disorder.” Glavan’s eating disorder didn’t come from one singular place or trigger. “Like for so many younger girls, it was wrapped up in the media I consumed,” she says. “It was in the messages that I subliminally got from what I was seeing online or in what I was hearing from my peers.” (Today, she says, that kind of content is back in full force.)

For high school athletes with college dreams, competitive sports can bring a lot of stress and pressure—it certainly did for Glavan. “I started to think maybe I would be a better volleyball player if I was thinner, maybe I would get recruited by more coaches if I was smaller, maybe I could jump higher if I was lighter,” she says. She remembers feeling paralyzed trying to figure out what to eat, skipping social events with friends that revolved around food, and noticing her athletic performance plateau. “I thought the answer was just to get thinner,” she says. “I wonder how good I could have been if I fueled.”

After telling her mom about her ED at 17, Glavan sought professional help. It started with a doctor’s visit that was a total wake-up call. “The doctor that was reading my labs looked at me and said, ‘Hey, Kate, I’m just curious, have you ever worked out a day in your life?’” Glavan remembers. “I thought it was a prank. I was a high-level athlete who worked out two times per day sometimes. But the doctor said, looking at my information, I had the bone density of an 80-year-old woman.” (Having a low bone density is common for women with eating disorders, largely because of how undereating affects the hormones responsible for keeping bones strong.)

After hearing all that work she put in—at the gym, on the court, at home—didn’t count for anything, Glavan realized that under-eating was not only jeopardizing her volleyball career, but also her longevity. It was enough to inspire a change, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. She spent her senior year of high school focusing on recovery, which meant sitting out of games. (Still, she was able to land a spot at a Division III college to play volleyball.) Eventually, she retired from volleyball, which is when she started running—just for herself.

Rather than fueling her eating disorder, running played a role in helping her move on from it. “It was really about going out and doing something that wasn’t for a coach, and didn’t follow a set plan,” she says. “When I first started, I even told myself that I would never run a race. I didn’t want to put a competitive aspect on the sport because that’s what had ruined volleyball for me.”

Naturally though, she built up more and more mileage, challenging herself to run farther and farther. Then, the opportunity came to run the Santa Barbara Half Marathon with Hoka, and she took it. Since that race, Glavan has also run the New York City Marathon in 2023, the Big Sur Marathon in 2024, the London Marathon in 2025, and the Copenhagen Marathon in 2026.

None of it would have been possible if she hadn’t learned how to fuel and support her body in a healthy way. “Today, I see food as energy,” she says. “Running has allowed me to neutralize food; it’s not good and it’s not bad—but I do need to eat it to keep going.”

It’s a far cry from the concerning content she’s seeing on her “For You” page. When Glavan searches topics like “running exercises,” “weightlifting ideas,” or “recipe ideas,” she’s noticed many of the videos under those tags have unhealthy messaging. “I’ve felt a desire to speak up about these things because I know that the algorithms are failing people,” she says. That’s why she takes to her own account for big sister-like heart-to-hearts about these topics.

After everything she has experienced firsthand, Glavan doesn’t shy away from promoting getting strong and lifting weights, rather than pursuing thinness. She’s also quick to call out toxic internet-speak, whether it’s with terms like “runners face” (the idea that running makes your face puffy and inflamed) or right-wing influencers promoting fatphobia.

Her message to followers is this: Under-eating poses a serious threat to your health, your sport, and your longevity. “You might not see what’s happening to your bone density, or what’s happening to your hormones,” she says, “but you are putting yourself at so many health risks by these actions, and it’s not worth it.”

“Running is about how you feel, not how you look.”

Before Kelly Roberts, 35—RRCA-certified run coach, 12-time marathoner, and leader of the Badass Lady Gang run community—was even a runner, she was a theater major and “self-proclaimed president of the “I Hate Running Club.”

After graduating college, unsure of her next move and dealing with the loss of her brother, Roberts turned to running. Plus, telling people she was training for a marathon garnered a better reaction than telling them about her day job as a receptionist, she says. Early in her running career, however, the sport was by no means a positive coping mechanism. At the time, it was about keeping herself distracted, exhausted, and thin, she says. She already had an eating disorder, and running played into those behaviors.

“I would run back-to-back-to-back marathons and I would try to run as much mileage as humanly possible, including running through injuries,” Roberts says “That was how I ran and I was constantly celebrated for it.” (For example: Brands encouraged the demanding schedule by offering to work with her only when she was running a marathon, people online would leave comments about her shrinking body, saying that it probably contributed to her faster times, and she had way more access to fashionable clothing because it often only comes in straight sizes.)

But, despite the negative effects it was having on her health, running also built community for Roberts—and turned into a career. At the New York City half-marathon in 2014, she went viral for taking selfies with attractive men running the race accompanied by the hashtag #hotguysofthenychalf. She brought levity and humor to a pretty serious group, later launching a blog and building a new kind of running community.

By 2019, however, Roberts says she was the unhealthiest she had ever been—so she decided to get professional help. In this next step in her journey, she learned the importance of having a good team behind you, whether it’s a therapist, dietician, a physical therapist, or any combo of the bunch. “I’m someone sharing a story and resources, but I’m not a resource,” she says. “I wouldn’t be here without the help of therapists and registered dietitians. Running is not therapy, but running is therapeutic—we shouldn’t conflate the two.”

In 2020 (and coinciding with the world shutting down for COVID), Roberts was able to take a step back from running. She took more time between runs, enjoyed shorter distances, and focused on getting help from her care team. By 2022, when she was considering her first marathon back, her therapist was the first person she called.

These days, in her personal life, Roberts says she can tell when “fires are starting”—in other words, times when she feels triggered to resort to disordered behaviors. When this happens, her strategy for keeping herself safe is simple: if it’s IRL, she walks away or interrupts the conversation; if it’s online, she hits the block button. Mentally, she’s noticed an improvement. She sleeps better, feels happier, and doesn’t feel as anxious, Roberts says.

Her running has improved, too. “Shockingly, when you eat enough food, you don’t get hurt. Who knew?” she jokes. “I haven’t been injured in years.” And, the running doesn’t feel as hard (even though, yes, running is always a little bit hard). As an athlete, at minimum you want to make sure you’re fueling, but “food is so much more than fuel,” Roberts says. “Food is connection, food is culture, food is fun. Food should not just be a means to an end.”

When it comes to talking about body image and running, Kelly doesn’t shy away from having convos on her social media and even responding to comments she gets. These days, she leads by example, setting boundaries with followers and trolls alike, speaking honestly when the time is right, and maintaining a page that promotes running in a body-neutral way. Plus, she does it all with humor—and confidence.

For Roberts, the message is simple. “We are not our bodies, and we sure as hell shouldn’t be choosing how we move our bodies based on how it’s going to make us look,” she says, adding that this trap leads straight to restrictive habits, disordered eating, and burnout. “And it robs women of the one thing running is actually supposed to give them: a relationship with their body that isn’t about how it’s being perceived.”

However, when you remove pressure and optics from the equation, this sport can be a profound source of good. “Running does wonders for confidence, mental health, and a sense of what we’re capable of,” says Roberts. “That’s a lasting source of motivation.”

Olivia Luppino is an associate editor at Women’s Health. She spends most of her time interviewing expert sources about the latest fitness trends, nutrition tips, and practical advice for living a healthier life. Olivia previously wrote for New York Magazine’s The Cut, PS (formerly POPSUGAR), and Salon, where she also did on-camera interviews with celebrity guests. She recently ran the New York City Marathon.