Social anxiety disorder is a common psychological problem that may negatively impact the cognitiveand social development of children. Its severity may, however, be reduced through regularparticipation in sports or other physical activity. This study aimed to determine the relationshipbetween competitive student-athlete swimmers' social anxiety levels and anthropometricmeasurements (height, weight, and BMI), body composition (body fat and lean body mass), and bodytype (ectomorph, endomorph, or mesomorph). The participants were pre-adolescent female andmale lower secondary education student-athlete swimmers. The Social Anxiety Scale was used toevaluate their social anxiety levels, while the anthropometric parameters included height and weight,from which BMI was calculated. Body composition involved determining the percentage of body fatand lean body mass; ectomorphic, endomorphic, and mesomorphic values were then calculated. Wefound that the social anxiety levels of both female and male student-athlete swimmers were low.There was no statistically significant relationship between the social anxiety levels of the male andfemale student-athlete swimmers with BMI, lean body mass, or ectomorphy. For the femaleswimmers, social anxiety levels were not associated with body fat, endomorphy, or mesomorphy,nor were those of the male student-athlete swimmers. These findings suggest that participation incompetitive swimming during adolescence is effective in controlling social anxiety. Furthermore, thisstudy revealed that social anxiety is not associated with lower secondary education student-athleteswimmers’ anthropometric measurements, body composition, or body type. Keywords:1Lower secondary education, student-athlete swimmers, adolescent athlete, swimming training,social anxiety, body composition, adolescent athlete
Funda Coşkun Özyol (Fri,) studied this question.