unhealthy range (Sherman, Thompson, & Rose, 1996). Gymnasts may try to lose weight to attain the implied ideal shape or weight desired for competition. There may be no differences in gymnasts' disordered eating correlates over the course of the season because gymnasts are either continuously trying to attain the ideal physique and consistently score high on disordered eating correlates, or they have attained the ideal physique and are satisfied with their bodies and consistently score low on disordered eating correlates. The athletic season may not be a factor for gymnasts' disordered eating correlates, but the attempt to attain the ideal gymnastics physique may be a factor. Although the findings of this study contradict those of Dale and Landers (1999), they support the explanation that athletes who have characteristics evident in eating disorder patients (e.g., perfectionism, drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction) may be predisposed to develop an eating disorder (Hausenblas & Carron, 1999). If this explanation is correct, disordered eating correlates would remain the same over time and the athletic season would have no impact on disordered eating scores. The results of this study support this explanation, as there were no significant changes in disordered eating correlates from preseason to competitive season. Limitations There are several study limitations that must be mentioned. First limitation the response rate of the nonathletes was poor. That is, only 15% of the nonathletes completed both the Time 1 and Time 2 questionnaires, thus eliminating the control group for the repeated measures analysis because there was not sufficient power to conduct the analysis (Cohen, 1992). Not having a control group is problematic because there is no point of reference to compare the results of the testing group.