“If I talk about it, I'm weak, and I'm supposed to be strong”: experiences of body-related shame in women athletes

Abstract

ABSTRACT Body-related shame – operationalised as feeling inadequate about one’s appearance, fitness, function, and bodily behaviours – is an emotional experience with particular relevance to athletes given the evaluative, social, and achievement-oriented nature of sport. To date, in-depth explorations of athletes’ body-related shame have been scarce and have had a restricted focus on the domain of bodily appearance. Exploring body-related shame is particularly important for women, given consistent evidence for the gendered experience of shame contextualised to the body. As such, the present study explored the phenomenological experiences of body-related shame in women athletes. Sixteen purposefully sampled women athletes aged 18–26 with a history of body preoccupation were recruited to participate in two semi-structured interviews separated by a week-long reflective journaling exercise. Participants shared experiences of body-related shame related to appearance, health behaviours, training, and performance in the sport context. Using reflexive thematic analysis, researchers identified five themes that highlighted women athletes’ experiences of body-related shame. Themes included (a) striving to be a worthy athlete; (b) conflicting body ideals and changing roles in sport; (c) the objectified sport body; (d) anti-fatness as the bedrock of sport; (e) shame resistance and athletic invincibility. Results from this study highlight the unique factors that contribute to body-related shame among women athletes from a variety of sport backgrounds and provide preliminary insight to inform the measurement of body-related shame and potential individual and systems-level interventions to improve the emotional well-being of women athletes.