Comparison of Body Perceptions of Athletes in the Team and Individual Branches

This study aims to the comparison of body image satisfaction levels of athletes in individual and team sports. The sample of the study was selected by 34 athletes engaged in athletics, 52 athletes engaged in boxing, 45 athletes engaged in wrestling, 37 athletes engaged in weightlifting, 36 athletes engaged in handball, 35 athletes engaged in rowing, 41 athletes engaged in taekwondo, 36 athletes engaged in swimming, 31 athletes engaged in water polo, 35 athletes engaged in volleyball and 42 athletes engaged in bodybuilding and all these athletes already ranked among the top three athletes in Turkish Championships. The scales were applied to athletes included in sample in 2017. In the study, “Body Image Scale” which was validated, trusted, and adapted to Turkish language by Hovardaoğlu (1986) was used as data collection tool. For analyses of data, Portable IBM SPSS Statistics v20 software package was used. Paired sample t-test and descriptive statistical analysis were applied in the analysis of the data. According to the statistical analysis results, it was determined that body image satisfaction level of athletes engaged in wrestling is higher than other athletes.