IHer eating disorder began long before she climbed for the first time. At the age of eleven, Martina Demmel tried to compensate for bullying at school and her strong need for recognition through strict eating habits and sports, such as skiing. She developed an eating disorder. Control over her body gave her a sense of security and success, while she became increasingly lost inside. Although she gained weight under external pressure, her supposedly normal eating behavior masked the inner urge to regulate her emotions by eating or abstaining from food. “I thought to myself at the time, why doesn’t anyone see that I’m not feeling better,” she says today. At the age of 13, she suffered from bulimia, accompanied by nightly binge eating that lasted for hours, social withdrawal and lack of sleep.
