lit a candle 3h agoMy daughter was going through her own bad patch with food a few years back and we found Alix's old interview together, late one night at our kitchen table. She talked so plainly about weighing five stone at her lowest, no shame in it, just facts. Twenty six. I can't get that number out of my head.
Their story
Alix Small was a Scottish professional fitness competitor from Forfar in Angus who won two IFBB Pro League titles and competed on the Olympia stage, the most prestigious event in the sport. Her rise was all the more remarkable because, as a teenager, she had been seriously ill with anorexia,…
Alix Small was a Scottish professional fitness competitor from Forfar in Angus who won two IFBB Pro League titles and competed on the Olympia stage, the most prestigious event in the sport. Her rise was all the more remarkable because, as a teenager, she had been seriously ill with anorexia, and she spoke openly about how training for strength had helped her recover. She died on Sunday 8 November 2026, aged 26.
Small said her struggles with anorexia began when she was 15, and at her lowest point she weighed around 70 pounds. She later told STV News that bodybuilding shifted her focus away from how she looked and towards what her body could do. Putting on muscle meant eating far more than she was used to, at times as much as 6,000 calories a day, and she was candid about how hard that change had been.
She earned her IFBB Pro card at just 19 and made her professional debut in 2021 in the Women's Fitness division, which combines physique judging with a choreographed routine. That year she won the Europa Pro Championships in Alicante, Spain, qualifying for the 2021 Fitness Olympia in Las Vegas, where she placed 12th at the age of 21. In 2022 she won the Mr. Big Evolution Pro in Portugal and qualified for the Olympia again, but she withdrew because of reported health problems and did not compete professionally afterwards.
News of her death was first shared on 8 November 2026 by the bodybuilding outlet Beyond the Stage TV, which said it had been told by her mother and her best friend. Her mother, Karen Small, wrote that the family's hearts were broken and that her daughter had been her best friend. No cause of death has been made public.
Fellow competitors, including the IFBB pro Phoebe Goodwin, remembered her as funny, caring and thoughtful, and recalled how she had been there for others when they earned their own pro cards. Fans across bodybuilding social media shared their memories of her routines and her comeback. To many young women in the sport and beyond, she was an example of recovery from an eating disorder and of a career built on strength.
Biography adapted from News reports (TMZ, Generation Iron, FitnessVolt, ge globo, STV News interview 2021).
In their own words
“My beautiful girl. Our hearts are broken.”
Her mother, Karen Small, on 8 November 2026
Photos
1by People Forever
Same interview got my niece through a rough winter. Thank you for saying this.