A Cogitation on Elite Weight Athletes’ Obsessions with Healthy Eating in Terms of Some Variables

Abstract

It was aimed to investigate the opinions of elite athletes related to weight-drop and determine their tendencies about orthorexia Nervosa and determine these tendencies with regard to gender and the attitudes of athletes on weight-drop. 143 athletes were involved in research from Boxing, Taekwondo, Wrestling and Judo. Data were obtained through personal information form and Orthorexia-11 Scale (ORTHO-11). It was determined that the vast majority of athletes (77%) sometimes got help from dieticians, more than halve's (65%) performance were affected negatively during the weight-drop period, and those who were close to half (49.7%) were determined to skip meals for losing weight and more than half (56.6%) were determined to start training without having breakfast. It was also determined that ORTHO-11 average scores of participants were as 24.18. Athletes who expressed to experience weight-drop which affect their performance quite often had significantly lower ORTHO-11 scores than those who did not ever experience weight-drop. Finally, it was revealed that weight-category athletes had higher healthy diet obsession tendency. It can be suggested that this obsession tendency may arise from anxiety of weight-dropand performance-drop experience.