Athletes Don’t Owe You a Mental Health Disclosure

September 9, 2024

In 2016, then-21-year-old Molly Seidel was the top distance runner in the NCAA and seemed destined for a thriving athletic career. But a series of injuries sidelined the Notre Dame student from that year’s Olympic Trials. That summer, she quietly checked into a four-month-long eating disorder treatment program.

She returned to Indiana to wrap up her collegiate career in 2017. Her post-grad years were plagued by more injuries, including one to her hip that required surgery and caused her to miss months of training. All the while, she continued to work on her mental health.

When Seidel joined her friend Julia Hanlon’s podcast Running on Om as a guest in January 2020, she was finally ready to speak publicly about what she had been through. Outside Online