Investigation of the relationship between social appearance concerns and body perceptions of weightlifting athletes at national team level

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between social appearance concerns and body perceptions of weightlifting athletes at the national team level. A total of 104 people, n=58 men and n=46 women who were athletes in the weightlifting national teams, participated in the survey. The relationship between social appearance concerns and body perceptions of weightlifting athletes at the national team level who focused on weight training for a long time was compared according to height and body weight, gender, educational status, marital status and age groups. In the research, The Social Appearance Anxiety Scale consisting of 16 items, which was adapted into Turkish by Doğan (2010) was used to measure the social appearance anxiety of individuals. In order to measure the body perceptions of individuals, The Body Perception Scale consisting of 40 items was used by Hovardaoğlu in Turkish validity and reliability studies (1992). The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS 22 package program. Descriptive analysis of the the variables of the participants, Kolmogorov – Smirnov test for normality tests, Depended T test and Pearson Correlation test to determine the relationship were used. When the total score of body image and social appearance anxiety is compared according to gender, educational status and marital status, no significant difference is observed in the findings of the study (p> 0.05). A highly important negative correlation was observed between the participants' body image and social appearance anxiety (p= 0.0001). According to table, there is no significant difference in the comparison of the total score of the participants' body image and social appearance anxiety according to age groups (p>0.05). As a result of the research, it is seen that the body image of weightlifters is at a good level and their social appearance anxiety is at a low level. It is seen that there is highly important negative correlation between the participants' body image and social appearance anxiety. It is seen that as the level of body image of the participants increases, social appearance anxiety decreases. Keywords: Weightlifter, Social Appearance, Body Image