Definition and Historical Background
Athletic participation is a commonly debated risk factor for eating disorders (EDs); however, the literature on this topic is both confusing and contradictory. Studies in this area use differing methodologies and measures, operationalize outcomes that describe partial syndrome disorders rather than EDs, fail to clearly define their terminology, rely on self-report data from collegiate athletes (which calls into question generalizability of data), inconsistently study either one specific sport or aggregate across several sports, and inconsistently classify sports using a variety of terms (Thompson and Sherman 2010). Smolak et al. (2000) suggest that the variety of findings within the sports participation and ED research area may indicate that sports participation itself is not a sole contributor to athletes’ development of EDs or disordered eating (DE) behavior. Rather, sports participation may serve as one risk factor that interacts with a complex...
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References and Further Reading
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Stewart, T.M., Pollard, T., Verzijl, C., Becker, C.B. (2016). Athletic Participation. In: Wade, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Feeding and Eating Disorders. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-087-2_183-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-087-2_183-1
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