Olympian Jana Pittman talks about poverty, body image and life after athletics
She’s competed at the Olympics, and now works as a doctor, but elite athlete Jana Pittman has told of her horror at being so poor she could not feed her children.
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Olympian Jana Pittman has detailed the extreme shame she felt at having to ask her parents for money when she struggled to feed herself and her kids.
In a promo for reality show SAS Australia, on which she is a contestant, the 38-year-old mother-of-four spoke of “almost losing everything”.
It was the former Aussie hurdler’s decision to study medicine as a single parent that led to the extra financial stress, where she simply “did not calculate my funds properly” and copped a “huge” tax bill.
“I had to go cap in hand to my 70-year-old parents and ask them to bail me out, which was, as someone who is very proud and has always been self-sufficient, that was very hard to realise I had failed quite miserably on my financial and parental responsibilities,” Pittman told Confidential.
“I remember literally breaking down in my room thinking ‘I have completely screwed up my kids’ lives’. I even put the house on the market and it didn’t sell.
“It is everyday stuff that everyday families go through. I had just been so gung-ho ho with this goal of becoming a doctor, but I hadn’t put my ducks in a row as well as I thought.”
Pittman is now working as a doctor in the emergency department at Sydney’s Blacktown Hospital.
Life is good, and she is remarried and gave birth to her fourth child months out from shooting SAS.
In hindsight, she said: “In all truth, it was great for me to learn how little you can survive on. We literally went to baked beans on toast and devon sandwiches at one point, and going over to Mum and Dad’s to steal a meal.”
Pittman has been a standout on SAS Australia, where celebrities are put through their paces by ex special forces soldiers.
Alongside Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, she is one of just nine athletes to win world championships at the youth, junior and senior levels of an athletic event. She also won the 2003 and 2007 world titles in the 400m hurdles, and competed at both the Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 Olympic Games. That’s on top of winning four Commonwealth Games gold medals across the Manchester and Melbourne games, and also competing at the Winter Olympics in the two-woman bobsleigh at the 2014 Sochi games.
Negative body image, she explained, has long been an issue for the retired athlete.
“It became quite confusing for a few years,” she explained. “It was linked to low calorie intake and what I thought your body needed to look like to be an Olympic champion.
“I am an almost six foot tall 80 kilo woman, which is not the normal body size for a track athlete.”
While the negative thoughts still come into her mind on occasion, Pittman is very aware of the negativity, and stops herself when she can.
“It happens to everybody, men and women, successful people, it can catch you off guard,” she said. “It is one of the reasons I didn’t go back to athletics because as soon as I start running track again, I become fixated.
“Athletics was not healthy for me.”
Being a mother has changed her view, too, and she aims to ensure her children don’t suffer the same body image issues she has.
“I am very well now. I do have occasional moments. I can’t look in the mirror and not be judgmental,” she said.
“It definitely helps that I have children and I do not want my girls to grow up thinking they are anything other than beautiful, so I probably over compensate and tell them how gorgeous and pretty they are all of the time.”
Originally published as Olympian Jana Pittman talks about poverty, body image and life after athletics
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