Social physique anxiety and disturbed eating attitudes and behaviors in adolescents: moderating effects of sport, sport-related characteristics, and gender.

BACKGROUND: The involvement of adolescents presenting high levels of social physique anxiety (SPA) in sport practice has been hypothesized as potentially problematic in terms of being associated with disturbed eating attitudes and behaviors (DEAB). Indeed, sport practice itself has been reported to be associated with higher levels of SPA and DEAB, and sport settings may sometimes promote unhealthy life habits. Nevertheless, current studies are few and present several limitations. PURPOSE: The objective of the present study was to examine these relationships among adolescents involved or not in various types (i.e., leanness and individual) and contexts (i.e., organized and competitive) of sport practice. METHOD: The sample included 766 French adolescents (337 boys and 429 girls), aged between 11 and 18 years, involved (n = 335) or not (n = 431) in sport practice. SPA and DEAB were assessed using French adaptations of the SPA scale and the Eating Attitudes Test-26. RESULTS: The results reveal a significant and positive association between SPA and the DEAB scales. Furthermore, they show a positive relationship between SPA and (a) vomiting-purging behaviors in adolescents involved in individual sports and (b) generic DEAB (i.e., a subscale covering fear of getting fat, food preoccupation, and eating-related guilt), particularly in adolescents involved in individual sports. CONCLUSION: The relationship between SPA and DEAB does not differ according to adolescents' involvement in sport practice or according to their involvement in organized, competitive, or leanness sport practice more specifically. However, higher levels of SPA and DEAB were observed in adolescents involved in individual sports.

Body-related sport and exercise motives and disturbed eating attitudes and behaviours in adolescents.

Motives underlying sport and exercise involvement have recently been hypothesized as potential factors influencing the positive association between sports/exercises involvement and disturbed eating attitudes and behaviours (DEAB) among adolescents. Nevertheless, very few studies have examined this hypothesis or the moderating role of gender, context of practice, performance levels and sport type on these relationships. In this study, these questions were addressed among 168 male and 167 female French adolescents involved in various types, contexts and performance levels of sport and exercise. Participants were asked to indicate their main motives for involvement in sport practice and to self-report DEAB (generic DEAB, vomiting-purging behaviours, and eating-related control) on a French adaptation of the Eating Attitudes Test-26. The results shared positive associations between body-related sport and exercise motives and most of the DEAB subscales. Furthermore, they show that the relationship between body-related sport and exercise motives and Vomiting-Purging Behaviours differs according to involvement in individual and competitive sports and exercises.

The Eating Attitudes Test-26 revisited using exploratory structural equation modeling.

Most previous studies have failed to replicate the original factor structure of the 26-item version of the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26) among community samples of adolescents. The main objective of the present series of four studies (n = 2178) was to revisit the factor structure of this instrument among mixed gender community samples of adolescents using both exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). First, results from the ESEM analyses provided satisfactory goodness-of-fit statistics and reliability coefficients for a six-factor model of the EAT with 18 items (EAT-18) closely corresponding to the original seven-factor structure proposed for the 40-item version of the EAT. Second, these analyses were satisfactorily replicated among a new sample of community adolescents using CFA. The results confirmed the factor loading and intercept invariance of this model across gender and age groups (i.e., early and late adolescence), as well as the complete invariance of the EAT-18 measurement model between ethnicities (i.e., European versus African origins) and across weight categories (i.e., underweight, normal weight and overweight). Finally, the last study provided support for convergent validity of the EAT-18 with the Eating Disorder Inventory and with instruments measuring global self-esteem, physical appearance, social physique anxiety and fear of negative appearance evaluation.