"It was born as a passion and ended as a nightmare. It all started with 'mom tomorrow I use the tape in the gym for the first time' and ended with 'I can't eat or drink, tomorrow the coach brings the scales and if I put on weight I'll have to run for an hour with the rope and the weights on my ankles, as they make Giulia, who has to lose weight '".
These are the words of Sveva Lamberti, just turned 18, forced to give up the dream of rhythmic gymnastics, one step away from death due to anorexia.
"I have always been very underweight, but I was terrified, Giulia was a great friend of mine and I feared - she says in a testimony collected by ChangeTheGame - that what they did to her, as to other companions, could also be done to me.
Once Giulia had climbed on the scales, the coach looked at the weight, then she looked at Giulia and burst out laughing to humiliate us.
Giulia began to cry.
They were indirect pressures which, however, weighed heavily on me "." Obviously - continues Sveva - there was no lack of direct pressure either.
Once I was wearing a leotard, my coach said to me 'next week you have national training, where do you think you're going with that butt?
Look at what they will weigh on you! '.
One summer, one of my trainers had made a billboard with our current weights and the ones that, for her, we had to achieve: all done without scientific or medical basis.
When I ate little, I was praised and so I was convinced that I was doing the right thing.
Gymnastics was my life, or maybe even more but,
due to the inevitable food problems that ensued, I had to quit in August 2020.
I had no more strength.
From there began the decline ".
hospital immediately put me on hold for another admission to an eating disorder center.
When I was hospitalized, my situation was so critical that I could not do anything, I could not go to school, I could not walk, I could not study, I could not live.
Doctors had rightly prevented me from doing all this to safeguard my life which was about to be swallowed up by death.
This eating disorder center saved my life along with my psychologist.
I have not come out of it, I am still on the road to recovery, but the latter, which previously seemed to have become almost unreachable, is now one step away from me ".
I couldn't go to school, I couldn't walk, I couldn't study, I couldn't live.
Doctors had rightly prevented me from doing all this to safeguard my life which was about to be swallowed up by death.
This eating disorder center saved my life along with my psychologist.
I have not come out of it, I am still on the road to recovery, but the latter, which previously seemed to have become almost unreachable, is now one step away from me ".
I couldn't go to school, I couldn't walk, I couldn't study, I couldn't live.
The doctors, quite rightly, had prevented me from doing all this to safeguard my life which was about to be swallowed up by death.
This eating disorder center saved my life along with my psychologist.
I haven't come out of it, I'm still on the road to recovery, but the latter, which previously seemed to have become almost unreachable, is now one step away from me ".
