Athletes face a number of stressors in sport, including performance pressures, overtraining/burnout, susceptibility to injury, and public scrutiny. Thus, it’s not surprising that anxiety is highly prevalent among athletes. Research demonstrates that gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms are also common among athletes and may be caused (and/or worsened) by anxiety about these negative sensations. In certain cases, these symptoms could result in Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), a disorder of gut brain communication characterized by persistent abdominal discomfort and bowel habit changes. Individuals with IBS experience greater visceral sensitivity (hyper-fixation) and anxiety about symptoms, which can increase pain and reduce quality of life. To mitigate GI discomfort, individuals may attempt to avoid/restrict foods, but this can result in nutritional deficiencies and, in some cases, disordered eating. In Study 1, we administered a cross-sectional survey to n = 147 student-athletes across 20 different collegiate sports and 84 undergraduate institutions to better understand the relationship between performance anxiety, GI distress, and avoidant/restrictive food behaviors. 22.3% of athletes in our sample met criteria for IBS (with 32.2% endorsing subsyndromal symptoms), far higher than the population prevalence of 6%. We also found that sport performance anxiety was robustly positively correlated with GI symptoms and anxiety about visceral sensations, all r ≥ .62, p < .001, and that GI distress predicted fear of food and fear-based ARFID ((b = 0.71, p < .001; b = 0.61, p < .001). In Study 2, we conducted semi-structured interviews with n = 10 student-athletes to better understand these relationships.