Eating attitude, body image, body composition and dieting behaviour among dancers

• Published in: Asian Journal of Clinical Nutrition
• Main Author: Hidayah G.N.; Syahrul Bariah A.H.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Asian Network for Scientific Information 2011
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84858315733&doi=10.3923%2fajcn.2011.92.102&partnerID=40&md5=5737ba74db6ac6694bbab41263b5c7e1

Dancers are prone to have high risk of eating disorder, obsess to be physically thin and generally will have body image distortion. This research has studied the prevalence of risk of eating disorder among dancers, comparison of the body composition between dancers and control subjects and to examine the relationship between eating attitude, body image concern, body composition and dieting behaviour. A set of self-administered questionnaires that consist of Eating Attitude Test (EAT-26), Body Attitude Test (BAT) and Dieting Behaviour were conducted on 23 dancers and 50 lean subjects. Measurement on weight, height, mid upper arm circumference and skinfold thickness of triceps, abdomen, suprailiac and thigh was taken. The result showed dancers have high prevalence of risk of eating disorder (21.74%) compared to control subjects (12.00%). There were also significant mean differences in percentage of fats and percentage of lean body weight, when p<0.05. In addition, there were significant positive strong correlation between eating attitude and body image concern (p = 0.002, r = 0.606) as well as correlation between dieting behaviour and body image concern (p = 0.012, r = 0.515). Moreover, the relationship between BMI and dieting behaviour showed positive strong correlation when p = 0.002 and r = 0.614 where dancers choosed to use diet pills (p = 0.001), vomit and taken laxatives (p = 0.016) for dieting. In conclusion, dancers were very concern about body figure, appearnce and fear of gaining weight which can lead to unhealthy dieting habits. © 2011 Asian Network for Scientific Information.