Breaking down barriers.

ISCHP’s aim is to break down barriers in psychology to improve the quality of life and reduce the suffering of people in society who most need it.  An aim that is close to my heart and a considerable part of the reason I am conducting my research.

The conference is taking place at The University of Galway from the 1st to the 4th of July 2025.

More information

For more information about the International Society of Critical Health Psychologists, or the conference, please visit their website

Roundtable.

Presenting at a conference roundtable will provide me with the opportunity to gain feedback from fellow researchers who are interested in my study so far.  This is an invaluable opportunity and one I am very much looking forward to.  I will also run two pop-up 261 Club UK Meet Runs to show delegates how non-competitive sports can encourage inactive women to become active.

More information

For more information about the conference, please visit the conference website.

Soapbox Science MK 2025

Soapbox Science provides an opportunity for women and non-binary scientists to share their work with the general public.  This year, it takes place on Saturday, 21st June 2025, at The Centre:MK (outside John Lewis).  I am really excited to share my research and what it is like to be a psychology scientist with the shoppers of Milton Keynes.

For more information, please visit the Soapbox Science MK website

Presentation

 I will present my research findings at the Menstruation Research Network Conference on Wednesday, May 28th, and Thursday, May 29th, 2025.

The conference is taking place at The University of East London.  It is a cross-discipline network, which is really important to understand the complexities of menstruation.

More information

You can find out more about the conference and register to attend by visiting the official conference page.

The foundations.

To understand the why, I’ll have to start at the beginning.  My earliest memories were of feeling different from everyone else, and I do not think this was down to being a middle child.  I don’t ever remember feeling any other way.  From as early as 5 years old, I suffered from anxiety attacks (although I had no idea what they were then).  By the age of 12, I was anorexic.  At 15 years old, I was pregnant.  I remember thinking that having my baby would mean someone in the world loved me.  My daughter was born during my GCSEs, so I left school with a complete set of A grades for absent!  I had some wonderfully supportive teachers who blessed me with the prognosis of never achieving anything and living on benefits my whole life.  I suppose I made it my mission to ensure that never happened and that my daughter would never go without.

Physical activity was something I grew to hate at school. Before anorexia, I hid food and comfort ate, which meant I began senior school overweight.  My senior school games teacher (and head of year) was nothing short of verbally abusive (she was the one who gave me my life prognosis!) and only liked the children who were gifted at sports.  Physical activity wasn’t part of my family life, and I didn’t have natural sporting ability.  As you can imagine, I had serious body dysmorphia from going from being bullied to being overweight to anorexic and still feeling fat and judged. Changing for P.E. was an issue.
On top of that, I had seriously heavy periods (who said anorexia stopped periods!).  One of my most embarrassing moments was starting one particularly heavy period during an assembly that meant going up on stage to receive a certificate; I left a beautiful crimson puddle on the light-coloured bench I had been sitting on, much to everyone’s amusement.  On top of this, I had a knee injury which side-lined me from netball – the only sport I showed some talent in, just at the time the aforementioned teacher began being even more vile. 

Physical activity of any kind became something I associated with pain, discomfort, bullies, shame and some of the worst moments in my life.

Fast forward a few years (without dealing with any of the trauma) to 2014 (age 35), when I met Skye Hall.  Skye was 5 when I met him.  He should have been running around in his garden with his younger brother and my youngest.  Instead, he was paraplegic because the treatment protocol he was prescribed for a brain tumour had destroyed the white matter in his brain.  He loved swimming but could not go to public pools because he was immunosuppressed.  His mum, Sally, had made contact through a friend of a friend of a friend to see if my husband’s company could lend them a hot tub so he could be in the water.  That day changed my life.  Whilst DIY SOS was going on in his garden, I had the privilege of learning about the charity he set up to help children like him – Blue Skye Thinking.  He was so inspiring and visibly in tremendous pain.  Two days later, he died!

I decided I wanted to raise money for his charity by doing the thing I hated the most – running.  I set a target for myself to run 500km for Skye.  One hundred kilometres for each year of his precious life.  I cannot tell you how hard it was to start running.  I used to cry every time, but I couldn’t give up.   Skye’s final words to his fans were “Make the most of what you’ve got.”  I was alive, I had legs, I had trainers, I had to make the most of them.  In October 2015, I ran the Oxford Half Marathon.  There I realised how much my life had changed and how my body had adapted.  How far I had come.  How much better my mental health was.  How supported I felt by the running community around me.  Then I became involved with 261 Fearless and realised that women supporting women was incredibly powerful.

However, I heard the same stories every week from the ladies in the club.  “I am not a runner”, “I can do that”, “I was useless at sport at school”.   The ladies had been told at school they were not good enough to participate in physical activity.

Why psychology?

I had so many unanswered questions about human behaviour that I began an undergraduate degree in psychology in 2020.

Towards the end of my degree, I realised I could continue my studies and research why 85% of adolescent girls do not enjoy participating in physical activity – I mean, surely it had to have changed from when I was at school!

There are so many reasons why girls should be active.  It is no coincidence that more than 90% of women in top executive positions participate in physical activity.  I will be back to write about this another day, but I want to leave you with a promise:

I will do my best to represent every single adolescent who participates in my research.  

Challenging Menstrual Myths that Limit Participation in Physical Activity: A Guide and Workbook.

I have partnered with Taylor and Francis to develop a guide for parents, teachers and coaches and an interactive workbook for adolescent girls (trans boys and those who identify in another way who menstruate).

This project will be based on trustworthy research and my findings to limit misinformation and disseminate up-to-date, factual, helpful suggestions to support menstruating adolescents.

I hope you are as excited as I am.

Deadline

June 2027!

Period of Activity: A study examining how the experience of menstruation affects adolescents’ desire to participate in sports.

Study Overview and Preliminary Findings

This study sought to explore whether menstruation serves as a psychological barrier contributing to the low participation and enjoyment of physical activity among adolescent girls, a concern highlighted by the finding that 85% of girls reportedly do not engage in or enjoy physical activity. Previous research conducted by Youth Sport Trust and Women in Sport has identified menstruation as the leading barrier to physical activity among adolescent females. In response, this study employed an online survey to examine the menstrual experiences, physical activity levels, self-critical perfectionism, and self-compassion of adolescents aged 12 to 18.

Data were collected from over 200 participants and analysed to identify significant relationships among these variables. Initial findings did not reveal a statistically significant relationship between menstruation and physical activity participation, even when considering potential mediating effects of self-compassion and self-critical perfectionism. Nonetheless, adolescents reporting more severe menstrual symptoms demonstrated higher levels of self-critical perfectionism and lower levels of self-compassion.

Interestingly, neither self-critical perfectionism nor self-compassion was significantly associated with physical activity in this sample—an unexpected outcome, given prior theoretical and empirical links between these constructs and behavioural engagement. These findings underscore an important limitation in the current research landscape: a lack of robust and developmentally appropriate tools to adequately capture the complexity of adolescents’ menstrual experiences and their influence on physical activity behaviours.

A central question emerging from this research is why menstruation has consistently been cited as a primary barrier in existing literature, yet did not emerge as a statistically significant factor in this study. This is particularly puzzling given that some participants explicitly stated their physical activity levels declined during menstruation. This apparent disconnect highlights a critical need for further research—both qualitative and quantitative—to better understand the nuanced ways in which menstruation may influence physical activity among adolescents.

Acknowledgements

This research would not have been possible without the generous participation of the adolescents who shared their experiences. Sincere thanks go to the staff and parents of students at Beachborough School (UK) and Buffalo Seminary (USA) for their invaluable support in facilitating data collection. I am also deeply grateful to all who helped disseminate the study—whether by sharing it within their networks or pinning posters in local waiting rooms. Your support was instrumental.

Where next

Listening to adolescents’ experiences and collaborating with them to develop suitable measures for future research.