ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Analysis of the relationship between physical education majors' perceptions of their body shape and fatphobia
Provisionally accepted
- 1Ankara Yildirim Beyazit Universitesi, Ankara, Türkiye
- 2Faculty of Sports Sciences, Istanbul Gelisim University, Istanbul, Türkiye, Istanbul, Türkiye
- 3Universitatea Dunarea de Jos din Galati, Galați, Romania
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Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether body shape percep-tions and fat phobia differ according to the gender and year of study of PE teacher candidates. In addition, the study aims to investigate the possible relationship between actual and ideal body shape perceptions and fatphobia. Methods: The study involved a total of 141 PE teacher candidates. The participants' mean age was 21.45 (±1.93) years (M female = 21.08 ± 1.56, M male = 21.73 ± 2.14). Data was collected using a Demo-graphic Information Form, a Fatphobia Scale, and a Figure Rating Scale. The Mann-Whitney U test, the Kruskal-Wallis test and the Spearman's correlation analysis were used to analyze the data. Results: The results showed that there was no statis-tically significant difference between female and male teacher candidates' levels of fatphobia. In contrast, there was a significant difference between their perceptions of current and ideal body shape. The results also showed that there was no difference between the perceived levels of fatphobia and the perceived current and ideal body shapes of the Grade Level 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th-year PE teacher candidates. The find-ings revealed a lack of a statistically significant relationship between fatphobia and current body image and between fatphobia and ideal body image. Conclusions: As a result of the research, the fact that PE teacher candidates are moderately fatphobic, perceive themselves to be overweight, and idealize thinness to a higher degree than men has provided critical insights for educational policymakers.
Keywords: Fatphobia1, body dissatisfaction2, PE3, teacher4, candidates5
Received: 22 Sep 2025; Accepted: 06 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sayın Temur, Koc, Iconomescu and Talaghir. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mustafa Can Koc, cankoc_01@hotmail.com
Teodora Mihaela Iconomescu, ticonomescu@ugal.ro
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