Symptoms of exercise addiction in aerobic and anaerobic exercises: Beyond the components model of addiction

Mind-over-body beliefs in sport and exercise: A driving force for training volume and performance, but with risks for exercise addiction

We assume that athletic success is associated with certain beliefs that on the one hand promote performance-enhancing behavior (training volume), but on the other hand can also be detrimental to health (sports addiction). These beliefs are succinctly characterized by the title of the 9-item "Mind-over-Body" scale presented here. They are the three beliefs that 1) athletic performance requires a high level of effort, 2) that willpower plays an important role in athletic success, and 3) that athletic success requires pain tolerance. A total of six web-survey-based studies with a total of 1121 participants (approximately gender parity), including individuals with different levels of athletic performance (no competition; amateur sport; regional, national, or international competition), examined the psychometric network and construct and criterion validity of the MoB scale. Exploratory graph analyses, which included the studies with the largest sample sizes, showed that the three belief components (effort, willpower, pain) form separable communities within the MoB network and that the MoB items form communities distinct from self-control and self-efficacy. Meta-analyzed correlations across all six studies showed low positive correlations with self-control and self-efficacy. In terms of criterion validity, MoB beliefs were positively correlated with training volume and exercise addiction. We discuss MoBs as "on the edge of unhealthy" and place MOBs within a framework of related but distinct concepts.

The relationship between exercise addiction, eating disorders, and insecure attachment styles among recreational exercisers

BACKGROUND

Exercise addiction (EA) and eating disorders (ED) frequently co-occur in both professional and amateur athletes, with up to 48% of individuals with EA also exhibiting symptoms of ED. Furthermore, pathological attachment styles have been linked to both EA and ED. The current study aimed to explore the unique association between types of insecure attachment styles (i.e., anxiety or avoidance) and EA and ED.

METHOD

Four hundred and five Israelis (199 women, 206 men) who were recreational exercisers (i.e., exercised at least four hours a week for at least one year) with ages ranging from 18 to 78 (M = 38, SD = 12.31) completed a set of questionnaires, including the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26), Exercise Addiction Inventory, and the Experiences in Close Relationship Scale. Path analysis was used to simultaneously examine the associations of attachment anxiety and avoidance with EA and ED symptoms. Attachment anxiety and avoidance were specified as independent variables predicting ED and EA symptoms and were entered into the analysis as two parallel dependent variables.

RESULTS

The results of the study indicate that attachment anxiety is positively associated with symptoms of EDs, while the association between attachment anxiety and symptoms of EA is not significant. On the other hand, attachment avoidance shows a positive association with symptoms of exercise addiction, but no significant association with symptoms of EDs is found.

CONCLUSIONS

These results imply that the anxious attachment regulation strategy is highly associated with body image concerns. Furthermore, individuals characterized by avoidance attachment manifest regulation strategies through excessive exercise. Scholars and practitioners could use these results to examine dispositional risk factors for insecure attachment styles and to assess specific pathologies among the population of recreational exercisers. The study also discusses limitations, future directions, and implications in detail.

Exercise addiction: A narrative overview of research issues

This narrative overview summarises the work on exercise addiction (EA) over the past 12 years and exposes critical conceptual and methodological issues. More than 1000 articles exist on EA, conceptualised as uncontrolled training harming the individual. Still, EA has no clinical diagnosis criteria at this time. Research is increasing continuously, but it is stale in advancing knowledge. Scalar measurement and lack of differentiation between addictive and instrumental exercise could be reasons for insufficient progress. Exercise addiction fits in the framework of behavioural addictions, but excessive exercise patterns also co-occur with other morbidities, including eating or body-image disorders. In these cases, exercise is instrumental; it functions to achieve a non-exercise-related goal. Therefore, it is essential to separate primary from secondary EA. Based on the interactional model, significant stress and capacity-exceeding ambitions fuel primary EA, while chief motives behind secondary EA embed body image dissatisfaction and eating disorders. Few reports exist on EA's brain mechanisms, which could delay its classification as a distinct psychiatric dysfunction. Treatment of EA involves cognitive-behavioural approaches, but we know little about their effectiveness. Conceptually focussed psychophysiological research and in-depth interviews, complementing scalar data, could answer several open questions in this widely studied but relatively stagnant scholastic field.

Dimensions of passion and their relationship to the risk of exercise addiction: Cultural and gender differences

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Harmonious and obsessive passion are two independent, non-interacting predictors of the risk of exercise addiction.

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High harmonious and obsessive passion reflect the ‘true’ passion.

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Exercise volume is weakly associated with passion.

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There are cultural differences in exercise addiction.

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No gender differences were found in relation to exercise addiction.

This study was performed to investigate further the two-dimensional aspect of passion and its relationship to the risk of exercise addiction (REA) in nine nations and to clarify the unresolved gender differences. The here reported results stem from the reanalysis of data gathered in three previous empirical studies. The analyses demonstrated that harmonious (HP) and obsessive (OP) passion are two independent, non-interacting predictors of the REA, the prevalence of which was 12.1 % in the current sample that included 1448 people (age = 30.49 ± SD = 11.17 years; 55 % men), who exercised at least three hours per week. Furthermore, the results show that HP and OP could co-exist as a single ‘total’ or ‘true’ passion within the individual or in high-low HP and OP proportions, supporting the proposal for one, two-dimensional passion. Indeed, most people at REA demonstrated both high HP and high OP. The weekly amount of exercise was weakly associated with the two dimensions of passion. Relatively specific cultural differences in the REA and OP, but not HP, have emerged. The results also demonstrate that when a minimal weekly volume of training (i.e., 3 h) is a criterion for participant recruitment, no gender differences occur in the REA.