2022 Volume 2 Issue 1 Pages 1-11
Objectives：The purpose of this study was to estimate the prevalence of eating disorders among college athletes.
Subjects and Methods：A questionnaire survey was administered to 443 college athletes who belonged to athletic club activities. The Japanese version of the Eating Disorder Diagnostic Screen DSM-5 version was used in this study.
Results：Overall, 7.0% of participants, 3.9% of men, and 12.2% of women met the diagnostic criteria for some type of eating disorder. By type of sport, males were more likely to have an eating disorder in the combat sports (13.3%), ball games (3.5%), and target sports (3.4%), while females were more likely to have an eating disorder in the aesthetic sports (17.4%), target sports (13.9%), and recording sports (10.0%), in that order. The prevalence was about twice as high when the degrees of life impairments were not considered.
Discussion：The significance of this study was to clarify the prevalence of eating disorders among male athletes in Japan and identify a type of sports with a high risk of eating disorders.
Conclusion：This study revealed that a certain number of eating disorders exist among Japanese college athletes and that support is needed based on the characteristics of high-risk sports types.
