The Association of Body Image With Anthropometric Measures and Eating Disorders Among Students From University Sports Teams

Background and aims: Body image is defined as a complex concept involving a person’s thoughts,feelings, and attitudes about his/her body. The body image dissatisfaction may expose the individuals,specifically athletes, to eating disorders (EDs). The aim of this study is to assess the association of bodyimage score with EDs and anthropometric measures in students from university sports teams.Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out on 225 students from sports teams of QazvinUniversity in 2014. The samples were selected by the census method. The Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire (MBSRQ), eating attitudes test (EAT-26) questionnaire, and demographicinformation questionnaire were used for collecting data. Anthropometric characteristics were alsomeasured. The data were analyzed in SPSS software version 22.0.Results: The result of the study showed that the association of body image score with age (P=0.012,OR=0.80, CI=0.179, 1.437) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) (P=0.013, OR=-52.14, CI=-93.20,-11.08) was positively significant. Although the mean body image score was lower in students withEDs, it was not statistically significant. In addition, there was not a significant association between bodyimage score and other variables such as marital status, gender, educational level, body mass index(BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), and hip circumference (HC) (P>0.05).Conclusion: In this study, the body image had a positive significant association with age, and a negativesignificant one with WHtR. This may indicate that abdominal obesity plays an important role in bodyimage satisfaction among students from the university sports teams.