Emotionella övergrepp och kroppsmissnöje hos gymnaster : En kvantitativ studie om upplevelser av emotionella övergrepp och gymnasters syn på sin kropp

Sammanfattning: Aim The aim of this work was to create an increased understanding of gymnasts' experiences and views of emotional abuse in relation to perceived body dissatisfaction. Mainly, the work investigated to what extent active and retired gymnasts considered emotional abuse to be acceptable or not and how often they had experienced emotional abuse themselves. Secondary aims were to investigate whether experiences of emotional abuse from coaches were something related to gymnasts' views of their bodies. Method Gymnasts from various gymnastics disciplines participated in the work. The gymnasts who participated were active or retired gymnasts, over 15 years old and identified as female. 52% of the gymnasts were active and 48% previously active. Vignettes based on the Violence Towards Athletes Questionnaire (VTAQ: Parent et al., 2019) as well as the Body Image State Scale (BISS; Cash et al., 2002) were compiled into a two-part web survey in Microsoft Forms. The responses of the 97 participants were collected and analyzed through a variety of statistical analyses, including Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient and the Mann-Whitney U-test. Results The result showed that the gymnasts had experienced emotional abuse to a moderate extent. They also experienced high levels of body dissatisfaction. Positive significant correlations between acceptance and experience of emotional abuse, body dissatisfaction and training amount were found. Gymnasts who experienced higher levels of emotional abuse also reported higher levels of body dissatisfaction. Conclusion A majority of the gymnasts stated that they have experienced emotional abuse at some point in their career. The results indicate that the gymnasts can identify emotionally abusive behaviors and that they do not consider them acceptable. High levels of body dissatisfaction were reported by many gymnasts, which also correlated with more frequent experiences of emotional abuse.