Exercise Addiction

Designed for individuals concerned about their workout habits, personal trainers, family and friends of folks with a problem, as well as working mental health professionals treating exercise addicts, The Truth About Exercise Addiction provides an easy-to-read, illuminating glimpse into the rising trend of over-exercise. Delving into the history of exercise addiction and the growing influence of “thinspiration,” Katherine Schreiber and Heather A. Hausenblasillustrate the symptoms and dangers of obsessive exercise with true stories from sufferers, all while exploring why and how such a seemingly healthy behavior morphs into a dangerous means of self-destruction. Analyzing the causes and consequences of excessive physical activity alongside the influence of genetics, culture, and personality, this book allows readers to gain a greater understanding of what exercise addiction looks and feels like. The Truth About Exercise Addiction also provides an unprecedented list of resources to address exercise addiction, a snapshot of treatments currently available for sufferers, and to top it off: guidelines on how to confront and care for someone who may have a problem.

In 2000, Peach Friedman, a college senior freshly broken up from her boyfriend, set out to beat the blues by beating herself into shape. Running ten miles a day and taking in as little as 800 calories, she fell from 146 pounds to 100 in three months and was at serious risk of cardiac arrest. What Friedman suffered from was exercise bulimia—a newly diagnosed and rapidly spreading eating disorder that affects some 400,000 American women, and which gyms and colleges across America are beginning to take seriously. In Diary of an Exercise Addict Friedman recounts her descent into a life-threatening illness, her remarkable recovery, and the setbacks along the way. With refreshing candor she lays bare her relationships with family, friends, and lovers and the repressed desire that finally surfaced as she found her own way back to health.

An old adage tells us that everything in moderation is healthy, but what about exercise? Unfortunately there is such a thing as too much exercise and there are real victims of this addiction. It can cause extreme weight loss, overuse injuries, exhaustion, depression, and heart problems, among other serious problems. This volume provides young readers and researchers a means of understanding exercise addiction and its ramifications. Readers will learn what causes it, how people live with it, and the latest information about treatment and prevention.

Focuses on exercise addiction and its relationship to eating disorders; explains how compulsive exercise can be harmful and how one can get help to deal with it.

This book evaluates the psychological concept of exercise addiction from a scholastically multidisciplinary perspective. The most recent developments in the area of investigation are evaluated with reference to theory and critical analysis of extant research. The book summarises the current knowledge about the psycho-physiological nature of exercise addiction. Further, it presents the conceptual hegemony in addressing the problem of exercise addiction within the scientific community. The characteristic and most prevalent symptoms of the disorder are discussed alongside the modes of risk-assessment. Subsequently, the underlying motives and several theoretical models of exercise addiction are reviewed. Finally, the research on exercise addiction is evaluated and directions for future research are suggested. Difference is made between primary exercise addiction in which the exercise behaviour is the problem and secondary exercise addiction in which exercise is used as a means in achieving another objective, like weight loss. This book concludes with two brief sections summarising plainly what we know today and what we still need to know about exercise addiction.

The authors discuss the causes of exercise abuse and how to get the maximum benefits from a regular exercise program without crossing the line to unhealthy amounts of activity.

An old adage tells us that everything in moderation is healthy, but what about exercise? Unfortunately there is such a thing as too much exercise and there are real victims of this addiction. It can cause extreme weight loss, overuse injuries, exhaustion, depression, and heart problems, among other serious problems. This volume provides young readers and researchers a means of understanding exercise addiction and its ramifications. Readers will learn what causes it, how people live with it, and the latest information about treatment and prevention.

Discusses addiction to exercise, its relationship to such eating disorders as bulimia and anorexia, its causes, and treatment options.