Eating Behaviour of Competing Fitness Sports Athletes in Finland
Paaso-Rantala, Ronja; Turvanen, Sofia (2023)
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202305109024
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202305109024
Tiivistelmä
The purpose of the thesis was to clarify eating behaviour of athletes competing in official fitness sports in Finland. To gain better understanding of the topic, fitness sports and its history, and eating behaviour, and its disorders were studied.
The commissioning party of the thesis was Finnish Fitness Sport Association. It is an association which purpose is to drive and develop fitness sports and bodybuilding. The aim of the thesis is to provide beneficial information means for the commissioning party that could be used for improving and developing coaching.
The thesis employed a quantitative research method. Webropol was used to create an online questionnaire for data collection. The form was shared by the commissioning party to the fitness sports athletes who had purchased a competition license for the year 2023. Overall, the anonymous questionnaire was sent to 544 athletes, and 253 of them participated. Thus, the response rate was 47%. The data was collected to find answers to the following research questions: 1. What is competing fitness sports athletes’ eating behaviour like?, 2. How common eating disorder behaviour is among competing fitness sports athletes? and 3. Are there differences between the genders regarding eating behaviour of competing fitness sports athletes?
According to the research results, it can be stated that eating behaviour of competing fitness sports athletes is food centric. It manifests as weighing and thinking of food and strictly following the diet. Despite of the appearance of some disordered eating behaviour traits in a small group of the athletes, their eating behaviour is overall healthy. Overall, men and women have quite similar stance and thoughts considering eating and training. However, significant differences between the genders occurred in the study, showing that men had more habits that are associated with eating disorders. The research may be continued by comparing the eating behaviour of fitness sports athletes and athletes of other sports. Also, the research of eating behaviour of Finnish male fitness sports athletes should be continued as previous research has been focused on only female fitness sports athletes.
The commissioning party of the thesis was Finnish Fitness Sport Association. It is an association which purpose is to drive and develop fitness sports and bodybuilding. The aim of the thesis is to provide beneficial information means for the commissioning party that could be used for improving and developing coaching.
The thesis employed a quantitative research method. Webropol was used to create an online questionnaire for data collection. The form was shared by the commissioning party to the fitness sports athletes who had purchased a competition license for the year 2023. Overall, the anonymous questionnaire was sent to 544 athletes, and 253 of them participated. Thus, the response rate was 47%. The data was collected to find answers to the following research questions: 1. What is competing fitness sports athletes’ eating behaviour like?, 2. How common eating disorder behaviour is among competing fitness sports athletes? and 3. Are there differences between the genders regarding eating behaviour of competing fitness sports athletes?
According to the research results, it can be stated that eating behaviour of competing fitness sports athletes is food centric. It manifests as weighing and thinking of food and strictly following the diet. Despite of the appearance of some disordered eating behaviour traits in a small group of the athletes, their eating behaviour is overall healthy. Overall, men and women have quite similar stance and thoughts considering eating and training. However, significant differences between the genders occurred in the study, showing that men had more habits that are associated with eating disorders. The research may be continued by comparing the eating behaviour of fitness sports athletes and athletes of other sports. Also, the research of eating behaviour of Finnish male fitness sports athletes should be continued as previous research has been focused on only female fitness sports athletes.