ReviewJournal of eating disorders2013
Weight-control behaviour and weight-concerns in young elite athletes - a systematic review.
Review in Journal of eating disorders, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 62 citations in OpenAlex.
- 2025 Update to the Female Athlete Triad Coalition Consensus Statement Part 2: Clinical Guidelines for Screening, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Return to Play for Adolescents and Adults.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Guideline
- Assessment of nutrient intake, nutrition knowledge, and dietary habits by sports type among adolescent athletes at a physical education high school: a cross-sectional study.Clinical nutrition research · 2026Article
- Managing Exercise in Eating Disorder Treatment and Adapting Treatment for Athletes.The Psychiatric clinics of North America · 2026Review
- Athlete-focused eating disorder programming in higher levels of care: feasibility and clinical outcomes from a naturalistic setting.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Gender Differences in Anti-Doping Rule Violations Based on a 19-Year Data Analysis from the Serbian Anti-Doping Agency: National Study.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Prevalence and Risk Factors for Eating Disorders in Adolescent Female Basketball Players.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Assessment of the Risk of Orthorexia Nervosa and Attitudes Towards Their Own Bodies among Amateur and Professional Soccer Players.Journal of human kinetics · 2025Article
- Comparing Population-General and Sport-Specific Correlates of Disordered Eating Amongst Elite Athletes: A Cross-Sectional Study.Sports medicine - open · 2024Article
- Do Swedish rock-climbers exhibit more eating disorder and body dissatisfaction symptoms than non-climbers? A cross-sectional study.BMJ open · 2024Article
- An Umbrella Review of Body Image Concerns, Disordered Eating, and Eating Disorders in Elite Athletes.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Review
- The Risk of Eating Disorders in Adolescent Athletes: How We Might Address This Phenomenon?Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Dysfunctional eating attitudes and behaviors among French elite athletes: the impact of psychological characteristics and the sporting calendar.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Prevalence of potential risk of eating disorders among young, unprofessional European athletes: results of the ERASMUS+ project SCAED.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Article
- Protocol for a 2-year longitudinal study of eating disturbances, mental health problems and overuse injuries in rock climbers (CLIMB).BMJ open · 2023Article
- New Epidemic of Malnutrition in Young Slovenian Athletes.Zdravstveno varstvo · 2023Article
- Weak regulations threaten the safety of consumers from harmful weight-loss supplements globally: results from a pilot global policy scan.Public health nutrition · 2023Article
- Eating disorder risk in adolescent and adult female athletes: the role of body satisfaction, sport type, BMI, level of competition, and training background.BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation · 2023Article
- Athletes with Eating Disorders: Analysis of Their Clinical Characteristics, Psychopathology and Response to Treatment.Nutrients · 2023Article
- Study of Different Personalised Dietary Plans on Eating Behaviour, Body Image and Mood in Young Female Professional Handball Players: A Randomised Controlled Trial.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Contraception, female cycle disorders and injuries in Swiss female elite athletes-a cross sectional study.Frontiers in physiology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Weight-control behaviour is commonly observed in a wide range of elite sports, especially leanness sports, where control over body weight is crucial for high peak performance. Nonetheless, there is only a fine line between purely functional behaviour and clinically relevant eating disorders. Especially the rapid form of weight manipulation seems to foster later eating disorders. So far, most studies have focussed on adult athletes and concentrated on manifest eating disorders. In contrast, our review concentrates on young athletes and weight-control behaviour as a risk factor for eating disorders. An electronic search according to PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) Statement was performed using Pubmed, PsychInfo and Spolit. The following search terms were used: weight-control, weight-control behaviour, weight gain, weight loss, pathogenic weight-control behaviour and weight-concerns, each of them combined with elite athlete, young elite athlete, adolescent elite athlete and elite sports. Overall, data are inconsistent. In general, athletes do not seem to be at a higher risk for pathogenic weight concerns and weight-control behaviour. It does seem to be more prevalent in leanness sports, though. There is evidence for pathogenic weight-control behaviour in both genders; male athletes mostly trying to gain weight whereas females emphasise weight reduction. There is not enough data to make predictions about connections with age of onset. Young elite athletes do show weight-control behaviour with varying degrees of frequency and severity. In particular, leanness sports seem to be a risk factor for weight manipulation. Further research is needed for more details and possible connections.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.