Eating disorders in athletes: Overview of prevalence, risk factors and recommendations for prevention and treatment
Abstract
The prevalence of disordered eating and eating disorders vary from 0–19% in male athletes and 6–45% in female athletes. The objective of this paper is to present an overview of eating disorders in adolescent and adult athletes including: (1) prevalence data; (2) suggested sport‐ and gender‐specific risk factors and (3) importance of early detection, management and prevention of eating disorders. Additionally, this paper presents suggestions for future research which includes: (1) the need for knowledge regarding possible gender‐specific risk factors and sport‐ and gender‐specific prevention programmes for eating disorders in sports; (2) suggestions for long‐term follow‐up for female and male athletes with eating disorders and (3) exploration of a possible male athlete triad.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Short-term education programmes have been shown to improve nutritional knowledge and reduce signs of dieting and body image concerns in female and male athletes.
“Short-term education programmes, using various delivery methods and focusing on factors associated with EDs, DE behaviours, and REDs have been shown to improve nutritional knowledge and reduce signs of dieting and body image concerns in female and male athletes.70 152-158”
From 2023 international olympic committee's (IOC) consensus statement on relative energy deficiency in sport (REDs) (2023) · cites this paper as [158]
No citation lists for this paper
No citation lists for this paper yet — checked again daily.
References 57 · Cited by 508
- Authors
- Bratland‐Sanda, S., & Sundgot‐Borgen, J.
- Affiliations
- Telemark University College (NO)
- Norwegian School of Sport Sciences (NO)
- Corresponding author
- Bratland‐Sanda, Solfrid
- Venue
- European Journal of Sport Science
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2012-11-13
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 499-508
- ISSN
- 1536-7290 (ISSN-L)
- 1746-1391
- OpenAlex
- W2009176126
- Cited by
- 508
- References
- 57
- Citations by year
- 2026: 36 · 2025: 51 · 2024: 67 · 2023: 69 · 2022: 70 · 2021: 53 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 28 · 2018: 29 · 2017: 25 · 2016: 21 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 15 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 11.60
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- European Journal of Sport Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Child Nutrition and Feeding Issues
- Keywords
- eating disorders, athletes, disordered eating, prevalence, risk factors, gender differences, eating disorder prevention, eating disorder treatment, early detection, youth athletes, adult athletes, long-term follow-up
- MeSH terms
- Feeding and Eating Disorders, Female, Humans, Male, Risk Factors, Global Health, Prevalence, Practice Guidelines as Topic, Risk Assessment, Athletes
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
