Testing general sociocultural and coach-related appearance pressures as the factors associated with disordered eating in competitive female athletes participating in various sports

ABSTRACT

The aim of the present study was to test the sociocultural Petrie and Greenleaf’s (2007) model of disordered eating (DE) in competitive female athletes. Specifically, we tested a model of general sociocultural and coach-related pressures towards body weight and appearance of female athletes as the factors associated with athletes‘ DE through the mediators such as internalization of appearance ideals and overweight preoccupation. 515 athletes participated in this study. The mean age of the sample was 19.0 ± 5.9 years. Athletes were provided with study measures on general sociocultural and coach-related appearance and body weight pressures, internalization of appearance ideals, overweight preoccupation and DE. Path analyses showed that general sociocultural pressures were associated with DE directly and through internalization of appearance ideals and overweight preoccupation. Pressures from coaches were associated with DE through overweight preoccupation and through the internalization of appearance ideals and overweight preoccupation. The models were invariant across body weight sensitivity in sports and age groups. These results inform DE prevention for female athletes. It is important to increase resistance to sociocultural pressures and pressures from coaches in DE prevention programmes for female competitive athletes of all ages and participating in sports irrespective of sports group (weight-sensitive or less weight-sensitive).

KEYWORDS:

• Competitive sport
• eating disorders
• body image
• weight-sensitive sports
• coach pressures

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Assoc. Professor Renata Rutkauskaite for her contribution to data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

Conceptualization, R.J., M.B.; methodology, R.J. M.B.; software, M.B.; validation, R.J. and M.B.; formal analysis, M.B.; investigation, R.J. and M.B.; resources, R.J; data curation, M.B.; writing – original draft preparation, R.J. and M.B.; writing – review and editing, R.J. and M.B.; visualization, R.J. and M.B.; supervision, R.J.; project administration, R.J. Both authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Informed consent statement

All study participants provided digital consent by ticking the option „I agree to participate“or „I disagree to participate“.

Institutional review board statement

The study was approved by the Lithuanian Sports University Social Research Ethics Committee (Protocol No. SMTEK-37, 27 May 2021).

Additional information

Funding

This research received no external funding.