The Mighty Toosh
‘Everybody was invited, if you were old, too skinny to fat, too tall short, too tall, in Derby everyone is welcome to try out for the team. I was the fat girl that came to try-outs, and I was accepted for who I was and what I could bring’
Patricia Guadalupe Arellano
Toosh was only four when her family moved from Chile to Australia, but the sound of tanks rumbling down her street and the chill of the disappeared will never leave her. She never played sport at school, and never liked sport until her sister introduced her to Roller Derby. The game changed her life, she never thought there was a sport for a girl with her body shape till then, it showed her how to love and accept herself. Her team “Team Unicorn” won the 2012 SRDL championship. The building that she is standing in was the original Roller Derby rink in Sydney, since the image was taken, this historical signage was removed.
The battle of body image extends beyond the pages of glossy magazines and school yards in to sport? Do the lines of body image and health ever meet, or just collide?