The mother of Scots Olympian Eilish McColgan has hit out at ‘demeaning and abusive’ comments aimed at her daughter by vile keyboard warriors.
Running star Eilish posted a video of her training for the London Marathon online, only to be met with users questioning whether the Dundee-born Commonwealth Games champion was anorexic.
Cruel internet posters criticised 10,000m champion’s appearance, and even claimed that the elite sports star’s training was not healthy.
Her mother and coach Liz McColgan hit out at vile commenters, and urged: ‘Stop the jealousy and abuse of women athletes online by posting ridiculous and stupid comments.
‘My concern as a parent is not for Eilish as she is of a strong enough character to deal with these people, my concern is for other kids, athletes that are not so strong of character to deal with demeaning and abusive comments on their appearance.’
And Eilish herself turned fire on the abusers, who took to the comments of a video she posted on her social media feed of her running on a treadmill.
The 34-year-old said: ‘Being an elite, female athlete is wild.
‘Some people have no comprehension of how much you have to fuel your body to do this type of training! Bunch of clowns!.’
Some of the disgraceful comments left, which were re-published by Elish as an example of the abuse she received, included one which said: ‘This is not healthy!’
One wrote ‘eating disorder?’, another ‘anorexia!!!’.
Eating disorder campaigners have now slammed those posting these comments, and said there was ‘no excuse for adding to the abundance of dangerous material that’s already on the internet’.
And Liz, herself an accomplished runner who won the 10,000m silver at the 1988 Olympics and is a former world champion, said: ‘There are some very naturally tall slim women in the world as well as shorter, plumper women.
‘We come in all shapes and sizes. They obviously do not understand that being an elite runner brings lower body fat but being an idiot and not fully understanding that your body needs to be fuelled properly by eating or your body will not perform especially for marathons.’
Tom Quinn, of eating disorder charity Beat, said comments like the ones from the internet users made the ‘internet more dangerous’ for those in recovery and urged social media firms to act.
He said: ‘We are very concerned that Eilish McColgan is being subjected to these comments on social media.
‘Commentating on a person’s appearance on their eating habits is never acceptable – while unkind comments alone would never be the sole and direct cause of an eating disorder, they can make existing eating disorders worse and disrupt recovery.’