Muscular dysmorphia in different sports: soccer, gymnastics, weightlifting, swimming and triathlon

Abstract

Muscular Dysmorphia (DM) is a body dysmorphic disorder whose sufferers are dissatisfied with their size and / or body shape. It has been studied in athletes of differents sports (Baghurst and Lirgg, 2009), but researchs is not enough. Therefore, the objective of this work was detected DM symptons among 485 athletes (387 men and 98 women). The sports represented were weightlifting (7.8%), artistic gymnastics (12.8%), swimming (10.9%), football (44.1%) and triathlon (24.3%). This study required the implementation of a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Escala de Satisfacción Muscular , the Physical Self-Concept Questionnaire and the Somatomorphic Matrix, in addition to collection the anthropometric measures of the participants. The results revealed the existence of DM symptoms among athletes, as well as muscular dissatisfaction and significant relationships between the domains of physical selfconcept related to this (general physical selfconcept and physical attractiveness (r = .73, p <.01), and general selfconcept with physical condition (r = 0.72, p <0.01).