The Vigorexia in the Sports Context

a literature review

Abstract

Vigorexia is described as a psychological illness associated with body image distortion. Individuals with vigorexia commonly experience exacerbated concerns with muscle mass, adhering to strict diets, over training, using various dietary supplements and anabolic steroids. The present study aimed to map and describe the scientific production about vigorexia in the sports context published in national articles between 2007 and 2017. A systematic review was performed on the Pepsic, SciELO, EBSCO, VHL and Google academic databases. Subsequent to the application of the exclusion criteria, 17 articles were reviewed and analyzed in full. The results show that the articles relate to vigorexia more expressively with the following subtopics: body mass, media influence, internal optimization of body shape, low self-esteem, body dissatisfaction, lack of control over one's health, perfectionism and distortion body. It is considered that, although the pathological search for beauty patterns is increasing, studies on vigorexia in Brazil are still scarce.