You would think that national sprinter and hurdler Dipna Lim-Prasad would never suffer from confidence issues – let alone struggle with her body image. After all, she’s clinched two Southeast Asian (SEA) Games medals and to date, holds the national record in the Women’s 400m Hurdles at 59.24 seconds.

However Dipna’s journey to where she is today was never a straightforward one, especially since she had a slow start in her sport, which largely affected her confidence.

Finding her talent

Having enjoyed running around and playing catching in her neighbourhood playground as a kid, Dipna simply wanted to join a Co-Curricular Activity (CCA) that allowed her to run. Naturally, she ended up in Track and Field.

While she dabbled about in other CCAs such as table tennis, hockey and Brownies throughout primary school, she decided to return to Track & Field. She then applied to the Singapore Sports School (SSS), competed in the time trials and made it through as the pioneer batch of the acclaimed school.

However, she didn’t have a great start there.

“During the first year in SSS, I was ‘tossed’ around a lot because I was really the slowest. They thought it was because I was in the wrong event. So I went to long distance, to jumps, but I eventually found my way back to sprinting because that’s what I really liked. I basically sucked at everything else,” she laughed.

The 400m event stuck with her, and in Secondary 2, she picked up the gold medal in the 400m sprint at the National Schools competition and subsequently earned her spot in the National Team.

“I think it was down to partial growth spurt, partial training properly for the entire year. I managed to clock a really good timing, and it was uphill from there,” she reminisced.

In Secondary 4, she had a new SSS Track & Field coach Slavan who decided to start her on hurdles. While she was initially closed off to the idea and even tried to cry her way out of it, she ended up liking it and doing pretty well at it too. Since then, she’s earned herself a Bronze and Silver medal in the 2013 and 2015 SEA Games respectively.

“You’re too skinny!”

While one commonly associates body image struggles with individuals who are on the plus side, Dipna struggled with her slim physique.

At a lanky 175cm and weighing 55kg, Dipna is often told she’s very skinny for a sprinter.

“Having the right muscle mass is so important in sprinting and being skinny isn’t a good thing. One important block of my training is hypertrophy and max strength to build muscle mass and be stronger,” she added.

Besides her physique, people also poked fun at Dipna because of her unique ethnic features – such as her long eyelashes and thick hair – due to her mixed Indian and Chinese genes.

It started in primary school, where Dipna was only one of two Indians in her entire batch. She never felt out of place, but the popular girls at school picked on her for how she looked and for her performance in the sport. It didn’t help that these girls clinching gold medals at Track & Field competitions, at a time when Dipna was struggling at the sport.

“The first year I was in track, the girls went outside my classroom where everyone was, and shouted at me to keep up or quit. That was awful. These were the same people who, for the rest of the years in school up to about Primary 5, would say things very loudly on purpose so you could hear them,” she said.

These girls not only mocked at her for her poor performance at the sport, but also laughed at her appearance and the way she walked. “They would say my eyelashes were so long and they meant it in a bad way. I had no idea how you define ‘nice’ eyelashes though. I looked around the school and everyone mostly had short eyelashes, so I thought I was weird. I actually went home to cut my eyelashes to make them shorter!”

All that is behind Dipna now though – she has taken great strides to be where she is today and she hopes others will be able to look at themselves in the mirror and accept themselves. It’s all about “feeling happy and content with yourself, and not picking on yourself,” she said.

Dipna’s advice to those who are struggling: “Love yourself. For me personally, it just came to a point where I can’t do anything about it so I just took me as I am, and I realised you can love yourself. You can do the same too.”

We chat more with Dipna…

Name: Dipna Lim-Prasad

Age: 25

Occupation: Full-time National Athlete

Height: 175cm

Weight: 55kg

What’s your current personal best for 400m sprint and hurdles?

DLP: Officially for 400m sprint, it’s 56.23 seconds, but that’s in 2013 – the last time I ran 400m flat. For 400m hurdles, it’s 59.24 seconds – clocked during the 2015 SEA Games.

Do you still suffer from body image issues?

DLP: I guess there are days when you get really paranoid, like when you wear a tight dress. I’ll get a little conscious because I’m pear-shaped, naturally flat and my legs are a bit bigger cause of running. I know it’s ironic because I wear tights to run, but I can’t help I feeling cautious when it comes to dressing up in casual wear so I try to avoid tight dresses.

When I go swimming, I try to wear sports bra and tights or short because it’s safer and it covers my eczema spots and marks. Also because I’m a bit more muscular, so wearing a bikini looks a bit weird on me.

Currently, what comments do you get about your physique?

DLP: No one really picks on me anymore.Social media opens the door for really weird people to comment just really inappropriate things, but at the moment, I’m quite lucky and it’s been quite positive.

People still comment that I’m very skinny for a sprinter, but I’m working on it by building more muscle mass. I don’t really get any negative things like about how I look. I’ve been an athlete my whole life and I’m used to having a larger lower body. A happy worry I have is not eating enough, which is what my friends do worry about.

The thing is – I eat a lot. A lot of my friends are disturbed by the amount I eat! The first time I went out with Amanda Lim the swimmer, she literally told her friends: “I’m going out with Dipna today and I’m going to see how much she eats for dinner.” At the dinner, I ate my meal and I also helped to finish the excess sushi! She then went back and told our friends, “Eh Dipna really can eat leh! Like legit.” Haha!

What do you think of Rock the Naked Truth?

DLP: I think it’s fantastic because I was actually speaking to a friend, and she was telling me her daughter was having trouble in school because she just hit puberty, and is having this growth spurt and gaining a lot of weight which caused her to lose friends. I shared my experiences; although weight gain wasn’t an issue for me, but I can relate to the humiliation and how to cope.

I remembered reading Sha Halim‘s story so I showed it to my friend, who showed it to her daughter and they were so inspired. There’s a wide spectrum of stories that RTNT shares and there’s definitely going to be a relevant story for everyone. I think it’s all about making a positive difference – it did for my friend’s daughter!