Transtornos alimentares em mulheres praticantes de corrida

Abstract

The standards of beauty and idealization of the perfect body built over the years by society, especially through social media, have generated social pressure in the search for a perfect body. These exacerbated charges lead to body dissatisfaction and even the development of eating disorders, such as bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa and binge eating disorder. Among sports, the one that has stood out in recent years is the race, which provides considerable results of muscle definition and weight loss, in addition to being accessible and easy to perform. For these same reasons, it may be the choice of sport for many people who have or are predisposed to eating disorders. Considering the scarcity of studies involving the practice of this sports modality by women, who may have symptoms of an eating disorder, the present study was carried out in order to understand whether running was being used in a compensatory way. Therefore, this is an observational, cross-sectional study, conducted in the form of an interview with the application of four specific questionnaires for the assessment of eating disorders (BES, BITE, EAT-26 and BSQ), in addition to obtaining age data, weight and height for the calculation of the Body Mass Index (BMI). Descriptive statistical analysis was performed, such as calculating the mean, standard deviation and the frequency (%) of responses to the questions in the applied questionnaires and anthropometric parameters. Twenty women participated in the study, with an average age of 34 ± 5 years, who practice the running modality at least 3 times per week, with an average BMI equal to 21.65 ± 1.20 kg m-2. In this group, 20% of the volunteers had concerns about their body shape and 10% had eating disorders and binge eating. Thus, the group of women runners analyzed presented evidence of eating disorders and concerns about body image, without conclusive evidence of malnutrition, considering the profile of the eutrophic group.