Abstract
Coaches’ role in athletes’ eating pathology has been largely understood according to athletes’ accounts of the coaching behaviors and practices that harmed them. Uniquely, this study engaged coaches as research participants to more fully inform future intervention efforts. Using a multiparadigm approach, this study explored how coaches’ understood, constructed, and communicated sport-related body ideals with their female athletes through specific coaching behaviors and practices along with systems of influence and interaction that informed them. Ten coaches (Mage= 35.6) of female aesthetic sport athletes were interviewed. Data were analysed via interpretive description. Results indicated coaches’ negative experiences as athletes themselves informed their intention to prevent harm with athletes they coached. Coaches nonetheless emphasized weight, shape, size, and appearance ideals steeped in sport tradition. Dissonance was salient between wanting to prevent harm using strategic approaches to body-related communication, while also reinforcing body ideals believed to promote high performance. Yet, neither athletes’ performance goals nor prevention of harm were attained. Influences across coaches’ ecosystems explained their behaviors and practices. A novel framework is proposed to describe five intersectional body ideal orientations embodied by the coaches, ranging from body ideal conformity to body diversity advocacy. This framework can inform coach-centered, systems-based education and research.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Similar Papers
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.