Evaluation of self-esteem and passion for bodybuilding in college students who frequent a gym ; Avaliação da autoestima e da paixão por musculação em universitários frequentadores de academia

BACKGROUND: Self-esteem is a psychological aspect that reflects in several areas of individuals’ lives, including the practice of physical exercise. In the same perspective, passion is an important motivational variable that corresponds to the way the individual treats an activity, for which demands time and energy. OBJECTIVE: To analyze self-esteem and passion in college students who practice weight training. METHODS: Participated in this research with a cross-sectional descriptive character, 96 college students (48 men and 48 women), with mean age of 21.90±3.10 years, practicing bodybuilding in the school gym of the State University of Maringá - PR, Brazil. The instruments used were an identification form, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and Passion Scale. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Mann Whitney’s U test, and Spearman’s correlation coefficient were used to analyze the data, using p<0.05. RESULTS: Overall, the results showed that college students had high self-esteem (Md=32.00), higher values for harmonious passion (Md=5.20) and lower values for obsessive passion (Md=2.20). Comparisons according to gender revealed differences for obsessive passion (p=0.003), with higher values for male college students (Md=2.70) when compared to female students (Md=2.00). When considered the time of experience in bodybuilding, it was observed that college students who have been practicing for more than a year (Md=5.30) presented higher values of harmonious passion (p=0.04) when compared to those who have been practicing for less than a year (Md=4.90). When correlating the self-esteem and passion in function of the practitioner’s sex, it was identified a positive and weak correlation between harmonious passion and self-esteem in male practitioners (r=0.396; p<0.05). CONCLUSION: The college students who practice weight training present high self-esteem and show passion for their activity. Moreover, for males, it was verified that the higher the self-esteem the higher the harmonious passion for their activity. ; INTRODUÇÃO: A ...