Addressing Sporting Pressures on athletes’ body Image and Relationships with Eating and exercise
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About ASPIRE
The Translational Health Research Institute at Western Sydney University is running a study to investigate the impact of sporting and athletic pressures on athletes’ body image, eating and exercise behaviours.
What is it? ASPIRE is a research program that aims to improve the understanding and management of athletic pressures on body image, eating and exercise to enhance holistic health and performance.
We have conducted a longitudinal survey-based study, alongside interviews with athletes to identify the factors that contribute to a balance (or inbalance) of wellbeing, health, and performance. We are grateful to the 230+ current and former athletes who participated in ASPIRE, as well as the 15+ sports organisations who supported recruitment for the project.
ASPIRE with us
Outcomes from the ASPIRE study will include increased understanding of risk factors for body image concerns and problematic eating and exercise behaviours in elite athletes, further validation of a clinical tool which can be used for assessment specifically in elite athletes, and development of interventions to help reduce the impact on athlete health and/or performance.
Some of these findings have already been published and are publicly available:
- Learn more about what athletes “say” about disordered eating and body image (opens in a new window)
- Learn more about which athletes are at risk for disordered eating and body image concerns and why (opens in a new window)
- Initial findings from the ASPIRE study (opens in a new window)
- Learn more about how disordered eating can best be measured in high performance athletes (opens in a new window)
If your organisation or network is interested in partnering with us to see how the ASPIRE findings can make an impact for your athletes, please reach out to the ASPIRE team at aspire@westernsydney.edu.au. We are already working with several high-performance sports organisations across Australia and we are excited to see how these findings can impact the future of high performance sport in Australia and across the world!