Is compulsive exercise behaviour helpful or harmful to its practitioners? In the 1970s, at
the boom of the “jogging generation”, Glasser (1976) referred to obligatory running as a
“positive addiction” because it allegedly led to
psychological benefits which included increased alertness, an improved sense of well-
being and control, and occasional feelings of euphoria. But several years later, Morgan
(1979) challenged this optimistic view by describing such behaviour as a “negative
addiction” on the grounds that it was not only characterised by punishing schedules of
daily physical training but also resulted in withdrawal symptoms (e.g., depression, fatigue
and restlessness) when prevented. Which of these theoretical perspectives is more
accurate? As usual in psychology, research has shown that there is some truth on both
sides of the argument. To explain, Kerr (1997) observed that there are probably two
distinct types of exercise-dependent people. On the one hand, some people engage in
excessive exercise as a reliable means of achieving a particular state of mind. On the
other hand, a small minority of people take exercise to the extremes, perhaps even to the
level of an addiction. Unfortunately, the prevalence of this latter problem in the general
population is unknown.
Having considered some important conceptual issues surrounding exercise dependence,
let us now sketch some research findings in this field.
First, attempts to measure exercise dependence rely mostly on self-reported
assessments of the frequency, duration and/or intensity of the physical activity under
scrutiny. Whereas earlier scales were unidimensional (e.g., the “Obligatory Running
Questionnaire”, Blumenthal et al., 1984), more recent measures of exercise dependence
are multidimensional. For example, the “Exercise Dependence Questionnaire” (Ogden,
Veale and Summers, 1997) measures both neurobiological (e.g., tolerance, withdrawal)
and psychosocial symptoms (e.g., interference with social and occupational
commitments) of the problem. Unfortunately, many of these self-report scales are
inadequate psychometrically. Also, due to a paucity of relevant normative data, most
measures of exercise dependence cannot be used validly for diagnostic purposes
(Hausenblas and Downs, 2002). A second general finding is that in spite of speculation
about the association between compulsive physical activity and such personality
characteristics as perfectionism, no distinctive profile of the “exercise addict” has yet
emerged. Third, little progress has been made in identifying precisely what exercise-
dependent people miss when they are prevented from habitual physical activity. Is it the
aerobic activity itself, or the context in which it is undertaken, or some combination of
these factors? Unfortunately, until this issue has been resolved, it will be difficult to
understand how people’s apparent addiction to exercise develops (Aidman and Woollard,
2003). To summarise, given the many gaps in the research literature in this field, it is not
surprising that there are no agreed criteria for either diagnosing or treating this problem
of compulsive exercise behaviour (Hausenblas and Downs, 2002).
In this section of the chapter, we have explored two health hazards associated with
habitual physical activity. Of course, we should not exaggerate these problems as the
phenomena of overtraining and exercise dependence affect only a small minority of
people. For the majority of the population, two questions are probably far more pressing.
Does a healthy body always lead to a healthy mind? Exploring exercise psychology 229