The goal of this research was to  examine the ‘percentage of female elite athletes and controls reporting sexual harassment and abuse (SHAB), and whether a higher percentage of female athletes with eating disorders (ED) had experienced SHAB’.  The data type uses was a questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed to 660 female elite athletes and 780 controls ages 15–30. Sexual harassment and abuse were measured by 11 questions on the questionnaire, ranging from light to severe SHAB. 121 Athletes and 81 controls results turned out to be “at risk” for ED and non‐ED controls participated in a clinical interview.  This study used qualitative analysis and was qualitative research. This study was incredibly eye opening to me.. I never thought of how these two variables could have possible correlations. The fact that athletes who struggled with eating disorders were found to be more often than faced sexual harassment/abuse is scary. It really made me think about the effect eating disorders can have on people in more ways that just internally.  This also showed me that sometimes when researching, some variables we might not think to have correlations can actually be strong correlations. We need to think outside the box.

Sundgot‐Borgen, J. , Fasting, K. , Brackenridge, C. , Torstveit, M. K. and Berglund, B. (2003), Sexual harassment and eating disorders in female elite athletes – a controlled study. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 13: 330-335. doi:10.1034/j.1600-0838.2003.00295.x

The goal of this research was to ‘examine the prevalence of anorexia nervosa(AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), anorexia athletica (AA), and eating disorders not otherwise specified (ED-NOS) in both male and female Norwegian elite athletes and a representative sample from the general Norwegian population’.  

 The researchers created a 2-step study.  This study included a self-reported questionnaire as well as clinical interview.  For data method, I was obviously classify this as questionnaire as well as using expert opinion.  This is qualitative analysis and data. In conclusion the study showed that the “prevalence of EDs is higher in athletes than in controls, higher in female athletes than in male athletes, and more common among those competing in leanness-dependent and weight-dependent sports than in other sports. A collaborative effort among coaches, athletic trainers, parents, physicians, and athletes is optimal for recognizing, preventing, and treating EDs in athletes”.  As an athlete myself this is shocking. Since athletes are known as people who are supposed to take incredibly care of their bodies would do exactly that instead of putting their bodies at risk…But it looks as if it is just the opposite. There is so much pressure to be perfect and perform to a certain standard, that we do what we think is going to help us succeed, but instead we are doing more damage and harm to our vessels that allow us to perform our sport.  This provides excellent insight to my research because it gives me an idea of the types of studies that have been done before, but has inspired me to go even deeper and get more specific, this inspired me to want to conduct research specifically on athletes at Redlands and see what I could find.

Sundgot-Borgen, J, and M K Torstveit. “Prevalence of Eating Disorders in Elite Athletes Is Higher than in the General Population.” Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine : Official Journal of the Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine., U.S. National Library of Medicine, Jan. 2004, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14712163.

Joy E, Kussman A, Nattiv A
2016 update on eating disorders in athletes: A comprehensive narrative review with a focus on clinical assessment and management
Br J Sports Med 2016;50:154-162.

This research is a review of ‘2016 update on eating disorders in athletics: comprehensive narrative review with a focus on clinical assessment and management. This article focuses on how eating disorders are incredibly devastating effects on health, especially in an athlete’s performance. To summarize, through survey, questionnaire, and in dept interview(data collection methods), this is about how Athlete medical teams need to systematically screen athletes (both male and female) as a part of the preparticipation evaluation. In addition to the team physician, dietitian and mental health professional, athletic trainers play a key role as the ‘eyes and ears’ of the healthcare team on the practice field and in the training room and oftentimes serve as the confidant and support person for the athlete who is struggling with and recovering from an eating disorder. These results was incredibly interesting and very helpful for my research proposal. It really sheds some light on the fact that eating disorders and disordered eating patterns can affect everyone-even those who are seen as “mentally tough”.
The type of data needed is qualitative and the method of data analysis qualitative research.
This was incredibly interesting research and a well done study.

Although this study was rather complicated and had a lot of elements that were hard to follow, the researchers set out to observe the relationships between compulsive exercise, psychological distress and the motivation to change in patients with anorexia nervosa. (Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that causes people to obsess about their weight and what they eat).  

What I really took away from this research was the background information and conclusions and how it could be beneficial to my own research project.  The results showed that greater compulsive exercise is moderately associated with people who have poorer eating disorder habits, and higher levels of eating disorder psychopathology.  Greater compulsive exercise is also weakly associated with higher levels of psychological distress. The type of data collected were surveys and questionnaires, cognitive-behavioral therapy sessions, sessions of LEAP treatment, and interviews.  

The researchers mostly used the questionnaires as a main source of data.  From this, they were able to asses eating disorder psychopathology, compulsive exercise, psychological distress, motivation to change and quality of life.  After compiling the different factors and their data, they were able to determine if there were strong, weak, or positive correlations between their findings.    

Researchers found that there was a weak positive associations between compulsive exercise and psychological distress.  There was also a weak positive relationship between exercise and obsessive-compulsive traits. They found excessive exercise to be negatively associated with obsessive-compulsive symptomatology. ‘This study utilized a quantitative definition of compulsive exercise and categorized patients as excessive exercisers if they endorsed obligatory exercise for at least 1 h per day, on at least 6 days per week for 1 month.’

‘Development and validation of makeup and sexualized clothing questionnaires’

In this ‘exploratory factor analysis’, researchers took a sample from 403 college undergraduate students(women) and measured the pressure women feel to wear makeup and sexualized clothing.  There were two different studies being conducted at the same time. In Study 1, researchers created two questionnaires to assess the ‘perceived pressure to wear makeup and discomfort when not wearing makeup’, and ‘perceived pressure to wear sexualized clothing, and body image concerns with regards to sexualized clothing’.  “The exploratory factor analyses revealed Unconfident and Unease scales for the Makeup Questionnaire (MUQ) and Body Dissatisfaction and Pressure scales for the Sexualized Clothing Questionnaire (SCQ). In Study 2, the confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the factor structure for the MUQ and SCQ. The incremental validity analysis revealed that these measures can be used to predict self-objectification and shape and weight concern in women.”

The research topic of this study was: the development of validation of makeup and sexualized clothing.  The research question was: to what extent do women feel pressure to wear makeup and sexualized clothing on college campuses.  

This type of data was sample and survey data.  This data took on the form of categorical data.  Although this isn’t in exact correlation to my own personal research question, what really interested me was the data analysis method and data in itself.  This is exactly how I would want to conduct my experiment because it possesses the same moral concepts in terms of measuring feelings and patterns in people.  I think using a questionnaire is a good way to collect data, but the results can be broad and not give enough specific information. With using a scale or a few different scales, like in this research, It would be able to provide much more specific data, as well as a wider range.  I think this research showed a way to be able to get the most out of using a survey/questionnaire/scale as your main source of data. It can be as specific as you like and bring some very interesting behavior patterns to the surface.

I chose to look at the peer reviewed journal titled ‘Journal of Eating Disorders’ from the Armacost Library. More specifically I looked at the article called ‘’Body dissatisfaction, excessive exercise, and weight change strategies used by first-year undergraduate students: comparing health and physical education and other education students’.

The authors are Tonia Gray, Christina Curry, and Sian A. McLean.
This was received, on October 18th 2016, accepted on December 18th 2016 and published on April 3rd 2017.

In this particular study, these sociologists surveyed university students who were studying to become health and PE teachers as well as other types of teachers and compared these groups in regards to how they feel about their body (if they had a desire to be thinner, more muscular..etc), as well as what types of behaviors they were engaging in . The female health and PE teachers were more likely to be engaging in excessive exercise rather than the just regular female teachers. These sociologists concluded that these findings to them meant that they we should carefully consider the attitudes and behaviors of teachers who are presenting information about food and exercise in schools.

After what we’ve been doing in class the past two weeks, I found it significantly easier to read how their journal was structured. The type of measures that were used were, demographics, body image, excessive exercise and weight change behaviors. The data was collected as a part of a longitudinal study. In order to analyze the data, they compared different factors that could have influence, as well as others that may or may not. This was the perfect use of applying correlation.

A very interesting finding through observing their data tables and analysis was that they found scores to be higher on the
‘Obligatory Exercise Questionnaire’ to be significantly higher for both male and female health and PE teachers than non. I was also incredibly surprised to see was that 57% of undergrad participants reported that they were on a diet that they created themselves, 41% were consuming high protein products, and 67% of men and 81% of women were using exercise to change their weight.

To be completely honest, I thought this research was a little bit scattered. I feel as if they tried to examine too many aspects and made the results a little all over the place and it was a bit overwhelming. I felt as if they focused on just consuming high protein products, drinking water to lose weight, exercising to lose weight OR, being on a diet it would have been less scattered. Maybe this is my lack of education of how to be conducting research accurately, but I would have been satisfied with only one of those examinations.

Specifically, the tables and data charts were a very helpful tool. Table 2 in particular. It answered the most questions raised and stimulated my own personal interest. Seeing the different ways SO people attempt to lose weight and change their bodies was crazy to see all listed out…and I was incredibly surprised by the percentage of men who are unhappy with their weight and have disordered eating and exercise behaviors.

Yager, Z., Gray, T., Curry, C., & Mclean, S. A. (2017). Body dissatisfaction, excessive exercise, and weight change strategies used by first-year undergraduate students: comparing health and physical education and other education students. Journal of Eating Disorders, 5(1). doi:10.1186/s40337-016-0133-z

To my surprise, I found it incredibly hard to find a written journal about organic food, and just food ethics in general in the Armacost Library. But, since I am incredibly interested in eating patterns and the thought process that goes on behind food decisions, I found a scholarly article called, “Body dissatisfaction, excessive exercise, and weight change strategies used by first-year undergraduate students: comparing health and physical education and other education students” that came from the peer-reviewed journal “Journal of Eating Disorders”. The contributing authors are Tonia Gray, Christina Curry, and Sian A. McLean. This journal was published on April 3, 2017.

In this study, university students were surveyed that were studying to become Health and Physical Education teachers, or teachers of other subjects, and compared these two groups in terms of how they think and feel about their body, to what degree do they want to be thinner or more muscular, and what sort of behaviours they are engaging in.
They discovered that male Health and Physical Education students were more likely to want to be muscular and to be engaging in excessive exercise, dieting, and the use of anabolic steroids than other male teacher education students. Female Health and Physical Education students were more likely to engage in excessive exercise over other female education students(Journal of Eating Disorders). These results mean that attitudes and behaviours of teachers who are presenting information about food and exercise in schools should be carefully examined.

The type of data that was used was demographic data, psychological traits, and deep opinions and attitudes. The data collection method that was used was a combination of detached observation, in-depth interviews, and surveys.

Researchers visited the lectures of students in order to provide information about the study, invite survey participation, and conduct hard-copy data collection during class time, supervised by the researchers, for the first cohort at all universities. The second University of Western Sydney cohort was also recruited and conducted in this manner but the questionnaires were completed online. For the second La Trobe University and Victoria University cohorts, researchers visited lectures to introduce and provide information about the study, and then emailed the students the link to the survey. For these cohorts, survey completion was conducted online, was not supervised, and resulted in much lower participant numbers. Exact numbers of students present in class or emailed were not recorded, so response rates are not calculated. All participants provided written informed consent to participate either online through Qualtrics or by signing a consent form(Journal of Eating Disorders). Independent-samples t-tests compared age and BMI for HPE and non-HPE groups. Analysis of covariance controlling for demographic variables that differed between the two participant groups examined differences between HPE and non-HPE participants for body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, and drive for muscularity. A series of multiple logistic regression analyses was conducted separately for men and women to examine associations between degree (HPE and non-HPE) and the dichotomous dependent variables for each of the weight change behaviors, controlling for demographic variables that differed between the two participant groups(Journal of Eating Disorders).
I thought this was an incredibly interesting study and although it it slightly different compared to my original research and research question, I am now incredibly interested in this research. I plan on incorporating this into my research and even possibly tweaking my own research question to fit more into this realm. I feel like having a combination of data collection methods in research is a way that leaves very little room for error and broadens the type of data received. They provided, tables, charts, as well as concrete evidence.

Tonia Gray, Christina Curry, and Sian. A McLean. 2017 “Body dissatisfaction, excessive exercise, and weight change strategies used by first-year undergraduate students: comparing health and physical education and other education students.” Journal of Eating Disorders 5:10.