Female bodybuilders Suffer from Body Image Disorders, New Study Reports

A recent study by  researchers at McLean Hospital has found widespread abuse of steroids and the use of other performance-enhancing drugs in many women bodybuilders. The study also found that many women bodybuilders suffer from eating disorders and other body image disorders.

The study involved 75 women athletes who had competed in at least one bodybuilding competition or fitness contest, or who had lifted weights in the gym five days or more per week for at least the last two years. Study participants, mainly all from the Boston area, received psychiatric and medical evaluations as part of the investigation.

Of the 75 subjects, 25 reported current or past steroid use. Women in both the steroid-using and non steroid using groups reported use of other performance-enhancing drugs such as ephedrine, which were used by 20 of the 25 steroid users and 21 of the 50 non-users.

The study, believed to be the first in-depth look at anabolic-androgenic steroid (AAS) use in women bodybuilders, is published in the current issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics

"Bodybuilding can be a dangerous activity for women who have or are at risk for developing eating or body image disorders because the bodybuilding community accepts as normal the compulsive dieting, self-preoccupation and concomitant substance abuse that are associated with these disorders," said study author Amanda Gruber, MD, a researcher at McLean Hospital’s Biological Psychiatry Laboratory. Gruber collaborated on the study with Harrison Pope, MD, PhD, chief of McLean’s Biological Psychiatry Laboratory, the paper’s second author.