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in collegiate athletics particularly female athletes.

There has been a rise in eating disorder risk and

the majority of people coaches athletes and the families of these

athletes think that this is because of the image that

social media portrays of what a female should look like.

And since this has been a rising issue and a

problem that's getting a lot of attention right now.

Researchers have began looking into it.

So the study we're looking at today is actually looking at

what could cause an eating disorder and a female athlete.

And there's a sample population of

female collegiate athletes from universities in

the midwest and mountain regions and these athletes compete at the N.

C. Double A. Division one level in the N. A. I. Level.

So the researchers started out by thinking that

potential causes could be what sport they play.

And if that sport required a type of leanness of cheerleading,

wrestling those have like a leanness requirement.

And then they looked at the level of intensity of the sport.

So high intensity sport,

for example would be basketball in a low

intensity sport would be considered like cross country.

And then they also looked at their motivational

approach to the sport and wondered if that

could possibly cause eating disorder symptoms or risk

of an eating disorder in an athlete.

So this study started out with two self reports and one was for

the eating disorder risk

and that was an inventory that was self reported.

I had about 28 items on there and they used that overall score as the outcome variable

for this study and then they had a

sports motivation scale which was also self reported,

and it broke down into seven sub scales,

but the research is condensed into three being the

intrinsically motivated extrinsic lee motivated and a motivated.

Yeah,

they began with six predictor variables, which were the leanness requirement,

the intensity of the sport if the athlete was on a scholarship or not, and

how long they've been playing,

what level of competition they're playing at and their personal age,

then the researchers used multilevel modeling to kind of rule out

some of these variables if they proved to be insignificant,

they were dropped from the study and that left them with less data to sift through.

And they also looked at the interactions

between leanness and intensity with motivational approaches.

And this led to the final model where they looked at high and low intensity sports,

which are shown in this graph here,

and then predicted getting to sort of risk score and intrinsic motivation.

So, as you can see on this graph, for high intensity sports,

the higher they were intrinsically motivated,

the lower their eating disorder risk score was.

And for the low intensity sports, no matter how intrinsically motivated they were,

it didn't really affect their eating disorder risk,

because this was the first study of its kind that's looking at the

relationship between motivational approaches and if it

could possibly cause eating disorder risk,

the result, they found cannot be interpreted as causal,

and the authors actually admit this and the conclusion of their paper they say that

they found an undeniable association or relationship

between motivational approaches and eating disorder risk.

But they couldn't tell if motivational approaches were causing in any sort

of risk or eating disorder risk

were causing the different motivational approaches.

The researchers also mentioned in the discussion the limitations of the study.

Starting with the self reported data, it's not very reliable.

And then they also talked about how there was a $50 gift card that was put into

a draw in any participant was able to win that at the end of the study.

So that could have been an incentive for people to participate.

And then they also had the topic revealed before the study.

So people participated in that

could have had something to do with whether they wanted to participate in something

that they were concerned about or if

they were uncomfortable and they didn't participate.

The study doesn't represent all of collegiate athletics

and especially not athletics as a whole.

So there's still questions for youth athletics, high school athletics,

professional athletics and even different collegiate levels of athletics.

So they only have division one which is what upstate is and N. A. I. A.

So there's still D. Two D. Three

junior college there's a lot of other athletics that are not being

looked at in the study.

This also had only females and there are risks of eating disorders in male athletes.

So that's something that they would have to look at and replicate

this maybe with only males and then we could maybe start generalizing this

information into athletics as a whole.

This study being the first of its kind did do a great job of finding something

to build off of and showing that this is something that needs to be researched.

So the study did find that there's a relationship between the

two of motivational approaches and eating disorder risk and that there

needs to be more done to possibly help future collegiate athletes

include the athletes that are retired and need help in the future

as a female collegiate athlete.

I believe that eating to sort of risk and symptoms are not spoken about enough

to us or around us or anything like that.

I have been on a lot of teams where I've

seen a lot of girls struggle with eating disorders.

I've seen girls from other teams at my school

struggle with eating disorders and there's not a lot of resources for us to go to.

So I think that the study is really important

as a stepping stone of what this could do if

we find out some of the causes or what

could help differ us from these eating disorder risks.

I think it's really important to note that this is the first study of

its kind and so they didn't have a lot to go off of.

So they did the best that they could,

but it's still not very reliable with the self reported data and not having any

male athletes and only representing two levels

of collegiate athletics and only one region.

So there's a lot they still need to do.

But this is a great star of what this could do for female athletes in the future.

And really all athletes in the future,

no matter if it's collegiate high school youth,

it starts very young in sports.

And so like being worried about your body comes very naturally from a young age.

So I think it's something that needs to be talked about more.

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