A Preliminary Study: Body Dysmorphic Disorder in Division I Women’s Collegiate Soccer Players

The prevalence of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) among collegiate athletes has not been clearly determined. The purpose of this study was to determine if there are symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder found in Division I women’s soccer players. The researcher hypothesized that there would be some symptoms found within the participants of sport and that there was a need to research this area further. The study consisted of four participants who participated in semi-structured interviews. The subjects were asked a series of questions from the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale Modified for Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD-YBOCS) to determine if they indicated any symptoms of BDD. The prevalence of symptoms of BDD found among these four participants was very low. There was only one athlete who scored high on the questions that could be questionable of whether the indicators or symptoms of BDD were present. In conclusion there was not enough evidence to support the research hypothesis. The sample used was not a clear representation of all Division I women’s soccer players. Further research is needed to determine if BDD symptoms are found among Division I women’s soccer players.

Honors, Inc.

Academics across the country are having an allergic reaction to the corporate model of operation being adopted by many universities. Terms like branding, collateral materials, budget controls, marketing strategies, and outcomes are causing a panic among faculty who believe that a customer satisfaction approach to higher education is anti-intellectual and that it leads to grade inflation, teaching toward evaluations, and learning as product, not process. Honors programs in particular, often the standard bearers of undergraduate academic standards, are being asked to market themselves not only to the top prospective students, but also to the university administration at large. Honors is frequently the default focus group expected to show the rest of the university programs and departments ‘How it is done,’ or rather, ‘How it is done according to standard.’ By ‘it,’ of course, I mean marketing our curriculum, selling our program, and branding our product.