Exercise Addiction: A Narrative Review
Tiffany Field
This narrative review includes current research on the prevalence of exercise addiction as well as the positive and negative effects, the comorbidities, the risk factors/predictor variables for experiencing exercise addiction, potential underlying biological mechanisms for exercise addiction and interventions. The prevalence has varied from 2% to 18%. The positive effects of exercise have included reduction of cell phone addiction and drug addiction. Excessive exercise, in contrast, has negative effects including poor mental health and physical injuries. The comorbidities of exercise addiction include OCD, depression, and ADHD. The risks /predictors for exercise addiction that have been addressed in this literature include individual sports, restrained eating, perfectionism, body dissatisfaction, childhood trauma, and death anxiety. A few potential underlying biological mechanisms include elevated cortisol, brain alterations and genetic predispositions. The only interventions that appeared in this literature included treadmill training and rational emotive behavior therapy.
