Arsenal’s Lotte Wubben-Moy is tackling body image in women’s sports

There are many forces acting against Jess Bhamra, Parminder Nagra’s character in 2001’s Bend It Like Beckham, conspiring to stop her playing football. Obstacles like access and representation – Jess has never heard of a women’s football team at the start of the film and by the end she has to move to America to even get the possibility of playing in a professional league. There’s her culture and family, her parents not keen on having a daughter who runs around muddy fields playing football all day. And then there’s the scars on her leg from the severe burns she got as a child, which make her feel ashamed to wear her kit shorts in front of other people.

Over 20 years later, the landscape of women’s football has changed quite dramatically. The Women’s Super League includes 12 professional teams across the country which are beginning to regularly sell out the “men’s” stadiums, while over 17 million people tuned in to watch the Lionesses win the Euros final in 2022. But when it comes to feeling self-conscious about our appearances and the ways our bodies look, these insecurities are still holding many young girls back from playing sports. That’s what research by Venus found: in a survey done last year, over a third of women (38 per cent) said they did not want to participate in sport because they worry about the way their skin looks, whether that’s cellulite, scars and stretch marks, or worries about weight.

“It’s something that I’ve been around throughout my career, witnessed from afar, and experienced myself,” says Arsenal and Lioness player Lotte Wubben-Moy, one of the female athletes who has teamed up with Venus on its on-going project of tackling the body-image pressures women in sport deal with. An athlete’s body needs to be strong and fit in order to achieve the remarkable skills and feats required. But these are not always traits prized by traditional beauty ideals for women nor seen in the female bodies that are celebrated by social media. Wubben-Moy points to the phrase “thunder thighs” or “soccer thighs” which she was labelled with growing up as an example.

“Ultimately, the images that are being projected online create this false narrative of what we – in particular as athletes – need. We need to be strong. We need to have big quads,” she says. “It’s about internally realising that this is what I need in order to perform at the highest level, in order to win a Euros, in order to go to a World Cup, in order to compete domestically for Arsenal, that’s what you need, your body is your tool. Regardless of how it looks, we need to empower one another to use this tool.”

Dazed spoke to Wubben-Moy about tackling skin consciousness, learning to embrace her body, surrounding herself with women, and community.

The campaign is all about tackling ‘skin consciousness’ – what does that encompass?

Lotte Wubben-Moy: Everything really! It was quite cool, actually, a year ago, before the World Cup, Venus did an exhibition in my local cage, where I pretty much grew up playing football, and they projected huge images of unfiltered women’s skin. These kinds of images, I think, at first, are quite startling for people, because they don’t expect to see that kind of imagery projected and made on a big scale. We often hide behind this idea of what we should look like as women, particularly in sport.

As an athlete, your situation is quite unique, because your body is so tied up with your job, with your performance on the pitch, and those two are intrinsically linked in a way that’s different from other professions. Has that affected your relationship with your own body image?

Lotte Wubben-Moy: Since the partnership, I’ve become way more aware of how I verbalise my feelings, or my understanding of my body, and also how I share that with other people. It’s been a journey, a coming to of realising that I need to feel empowered within my body, because this is what will allow me to be confident on the pitch, knowing that I am capable, knowing that this is the way my body is supposed to be.

It’s not necessary to hold the visual side of it to the highest degree, because that’s not my job, and that’s not what I need to do in order to be successful and that’s been quite amazing for me, personally, to go through that journey. Without even realising that at the start of it, I would also come to learn quite a lot as well.

I need to feel empowered within my body, because this is what will allow me to be confident on the pitch, knowing that I am capable, knowing that this is the way my body is supposed to be.

Have things changed as the women’s game has become more high-profile? There is increased public attention given to the sport but also to players themselves. Do you feel more of a pressure to look a certain way because of that?

Lotte Wubben-Moy: I think, firstly, to acknowledge how important it is that we are more visible, that we are on television, we are in the newspapers. We are there to be seen. And I think that’s not only good for women’s football, but also women’s sports. Football mirrors a section of society that for many years has been dominated by men, so by us being more visual and embracing that, I think it is really positive.

I don’t think I feel pressure. I think I feel empowered by my body and how it is received, thanks to the journey that I’ve been on. Because no one can say anything that will change the capability of my body, and I work day in, day out, to be the strongest, to be the fittest, and if that means that my body looks a certain way, then so be it. I don’t view it as a negative thing. I view it as something that’s quite positive. I think the pressure is actually on the performance and the resilience to continue to fight, continue to play, regardless of whether it’s been a good day or a bad day, or a good match or a bad match.

Why is it important to tackle this issue of skin consciousness in young women and girls?

Lotte Wubben-Moy: There are kids, girls in particular, that don’t want to participate in sport because they worry about the way their skin looks. And to me, that seems like the saddest thing that you can imagine, because it inhibits any kind of soft skills that you develop on the pitch which have served me so well, not just in football but in my life, with communication, confidence, self-esteem, growth. These are key skills that, if it wasn’t for sport, I don’t think I would have at my disposal.

I can only speak from my experiences, but I’d like to think that in any way possible, I want to help equip the next generation with those skills, and not necessarily putting pressure on them to be professional athletes, but to just enjoy life and feel confident, feel happy, and pursue a life in whatever they fancy really.

Was that one of the reasons that you led the initiative of writing to the government to ask for equal access to football for girls at schools? Because playing a sport can set them up for success, even if they don’t go on to be professional athletes?

Lotte Wubben-Moy: You’ve kind of hit the nail on the head in terms of what it sets you up for, whatever your success looks like. Before the Euros I think it was 75 per cent of girls that could go to school and actually do the same amount of sport, and in particular football, as their male counterparts. To me that is inequality right there. That is discrimination based on gender. There was so much impetus behind the letter, obviously it was me that led it, but every woman in that Euros squad had a story of where they’d been told no, where they’d hit a barrier and had to overcome it. Imagine how many people were not over able to overcome those barriers. Imagine how many young girls could potentially have been in our shoes winning a Euros.

These next three, four years, we want our focus to not just be on young kids in primary schools, we want it to be on secondary school kids, in particular, women who maybe haven’t had that opportunity from a younger age because they were of a generation that came before the Euros, but now are interested in it.

No one can say anything that will change the capability of my body, and I work day in, day out, to be the strongest, to be the fittest, and if that means that my body looks a certain way, then so be it

What’s the biggest thing that you’ve done or changed in your life to give yourself confidence?

Lotte Wubben-Moy: Surround myself with other women. When we come together as women, there’s this amazing sense of unity and sense of understanding one another that I’ve witnessed both at school – in my girls football team that I set up as a primary school kid – but even more so now as a woman in a professional women’s football team. The unity that we have is remarkable, and it’s given me confidence in ways that probably my parents would be like, ‘We didn’t know that you could be so bold,’ and live this life that no one really considered was possible for women. So I’d say that it’s being surrounded by other women and choosing to be surrounded by those people.

I say this quite often, one of the biggest changes that I made as a young person was bringing other women together who had a joint goal. It was a group of six or seven of us who were all part of that girls football team. It was such a joy and such a big moment, that it has propelled me on to this career that I didn’t even know I could have as a young person. I’d say that was probably one of the most beautiful things I could have done for my confidence.