Eating habits and body image among gym goers

DOI: 10.15343/0104-7809.20194301227248

Abstract

Although regular exercise is widely recommended to promote health and improvement quality of life, young people commonly report exercising primarily for weight control and for reasons related to their physical appearance. The objective of the study was to evaluate the degree of body satisfaction and its association with eating habits of individuals exercising in gymnasiums. This was a cross-sectional study involving 432 adolescents and young adults (men = 39.8%, women = 60.2%). A body self-perception questionnaire and a silhouetted scale was used to evaluate body image, as well as a food consumption questionnaire, whose score was calculated using the formula: Eating score = (total of points obtained ÷ maximum of possible points according to the number of items filled out) x 100. The scoring scale ranges from 0 to 100 and the higher the score the greater the inadequacy of eating habits. The chi-squared test was used to analyze the association between the degree of body satisfaction and the ingestion of the food groups, a p-value