The Health of Competitive Fitness Athletes

Norwegian School of Sport Sciences

Status

Completed

Conditions

Eating Disorder

Exercise-Related Amenorrhea

Dietary Amenorrhea

Body Image

Binge Eating

Perfectionism

Dietary Deficiency

Depression

Resting Metabolic Rate

Exercise Addiction

Bone Mineral Density, Low, Susceptibility to

Treatments

Other: Psychological health

Other: Physiological health

Study type

Observational

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT03007459

3281

Details and patient eligibility

About

Fitness athletes emphasize the value of staying lean, muscular and defined, and motivates and inspires followers through social media. We want to study the effect of such lifestyle on selected aspects of psychological and physical health in female fitness athletes, and compare the outcomes to a healthy, physically active female population.

Full description

Little is known about the mental and physical health effect from following the modern, idealized fitness lifestyle. The lifestyle is characterized by selective and restrictive eating behavior, strength training and use of supplements. The athletes emphasize the value of staying lean, muscular and defined, and motivates and inspires followers through social media. This study will recruit and observe a group of competitive female fitness athletes over their typical 3 month dieting period when preparing for contest. Before their contest diet is initiated, the athletes will be screened on selected aspects of psychological and physical health. The screening is repeated two weeks prior to their first seasonal contest, and then finally one month post-contest season. During the diet period of 3 months, the athletes answers brief questionnaires by email on eating- and training behavior and on mood, while also reporting dietary intake by telephone interview.

Recreational physically females, not planning to do any fitness contest, will be recruited to serve as a parallel control group. They will perform the same physical and psychological screening, and answer the same questionnaires throughout the fitness contest diet period.

Enrollment

47 patients

Sex

Female

Ages

18 to 40 years old

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Fitness athletes: planning to compete in fitness sport during spring or fall 2017
Controls: being regular physically active (exercise >2 times/week during last year) with a BMI between 17,5-30

Exclusion criteria

Controls: having competed in fitness sports previously or planning to do in the future, or working as a personal trainer.
Not able to meet at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences for baseline and follow up screenings.
Being pregnant or nursing
Metabolic related diseases