Eureka! Institutional Repository

In our days, regardless of gender or age, people are confronted with various beauty standards. One of them is the standard of the “ideal” body. In order to achieve this ideal image, presented mainly by the media, they are led to the use of various practices with nutrition and exercise constituting their cornerstone. In fact, there is a number of physically active people, who due to the psychological pressure they force on themselves, they end up developing eating disorders. Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the relationship between eating habits, physical activity and body image of exercisers among different areas of Thessaloniki. Furthermore, we attempted to examine the existence of eating disorders among participants. The sample of this study was taken from Kalamaria, Toumpa, Triandria, Thermi and included a total of 188 participants aged 18-38. Method: This study employed the quantitative research method to obtain data. The participants completed the TFEQ_R21, SREB-GR, IPAQ and Food Frequency questionnaire. Analyses were conducted using SPSS software. Results: According to our results, participants are interested in their eating habits, in order to gain the «ideal body». They insist on a slim shaped body being strongly influenced by social media. In order to imitate their loving figures and follow the trends, they definitely adapt specific eating habits and physical activity. On the other hand, observing their habits, we noticed that a majority complies with the Mediterranean diet model with just few variations, however. Despite of the intense preoccupation with their body image seem that anxiety disorder is being relating does not raise any further worries.