- Bonci, L. Nutrition and Well-Being A to Z, Exercise Addiction. Copyright © 2010 Advameg, Inc. Medical Review Board http://addictions.about.com/od/lesserknownaddictions/a/exerciseadd.htm
- Bonci gives a small but fine description to the reader of exercise addiction and how people excessively exercise. Their excessive behaviors gives soon evolves into an obsessive disorder; they soon go overboard with their exercise and physically harm themselves and yet they still are not satisfied. The author explains about how these people skip school, work and other social activities to exercise instead. If their plans do not involve exercise, they start to feel guilty that they did not fulfill their needs, therefore, they work intensively the next time they visit the gym. This addiction not only harms the muscles of the body, but compulsive exercisers begin to have hormonal changes, decreasing the testosterone in the males and an increase in cortical. This type of hormone is a response to stress, which harms the bones of a body, causing osteoporosis. She explains that exercise addicts rarely rest and act socially with people….they live off exercising and nothing else.
- Hartney, E. What is Exercise Addiction?, Exercise Addiction Basics. About.com Guide; Updated August 1st, 2010. About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by the
- Hartney describes the consequences of being an exercise addict. She discusses about how unhealthy it is to constantly exercise for hours, causing injuries, physical harm and more anxiety to the body. The author also explains how exercise addiction is maladaptive and persistent: an addict causes constant pain to his body, psychologically thinking that it is helping him, but in reality, is only weakening his body. Statistics also show that exercise addicts exercise compulsively because of their emotions; they are either anxious that they are too fat, causing them to become bulimic or anorexic, or try to let out their anger or stress by abusing the exercise. Lastly, she explains to the reader how these type of addicts have a great sense of control with their bodies, however, this control leads to a loss of control over the ability to balance the activity with other priorities in life.
- Johnson, M. (2000). Understanding Exercise Addiction: A Teen Eating Disorder Prevention Book. The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. (First Edition). Retrieved from Johnson’s book could rather more relate to a teenager. She discusses on how teenagers think about their weight; how a guy would like to be as “fit as Tiger Woods” or a girl to be as “fit as Britney Spears”. She explains on how most people love that adrenaline feeling of being pumped after a work out.. Being buff and toned up is great, but once it is a constant action everyday, it soon becomes an addiction. People who are addiction to exercise start rescheduling any other activities in order to have more time to work out. Their interests soon begin to be uninteresting to them, like boyfriends and girlfriends or clubs. If there is one day that prevents them to exercise, they still find a way to do it, despite any danger that could harm them. She then explains that this addiction harms the body critically, like injured backs and degeneration of muscles and joints. Like any other author discussing about compulsive exercise, she states that exercise addiction connects to an eating disorder, bulimia and anorexia. The rest of the book shows how our pop culture relies on being fit and beautiful, therefore, addicts to exercise try to fit in the crowd by losing weight in harmful ways. http://www.mclean.harvard.edu/pdf/news/fitnessmanage0704.pdf http://books.google.com/books
- McGough, S. (July 2004). Exercise addiction and Eating Disorders.
McLean in the News, FitnessManagement.com
Retrieved October 1st, 2010, from- McGough explains to the reader the importance of addressing the problems of compulsive exercise to facilities that obtain fitness centers. She centers on the fact that people that exercise unhealthily should get help from professional dietitians. The author also gives the reader notes on the symptoms of an excessive exercise addict, for example, like social changes and an exercise when unwell or injured, so that the reader could pin-point out these addicts and aid them. Her other topics involve how unhealthy it is to be a person who exercises compulsively.
- Kaminker, L. (1998). What is an Eating Disorder? Exercise Addiction: When Fitness Becomes and Obsession. The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. (First Edition). Retrieved from The dangers of an exercise addiction is critical in one’s life. That is what Kaminker mainly focuses on in her book as exercise becoming an obsession. She explains that this addiction has a relationship to an eating disorder, causing the body of a person to weaken when, psychologically, they think it’s benefiting them. The author also tells the story of two young girls that decide to pursue on this exercise frenzy. One girl constantly thinks that she is fat, gaining weight whenever she eats for her health. She began to abuse her exercise and soon, others began to notice her skinny body. She was afraid of getting help….the other girl had a great life before her addiction. She had straight A’s and was active in sports. That is, until her mother and her step-father began to split up. They constantly fought, so she went to the gym as a good escape. She started losing weight and to her, she felt good. She then started to make herself throw up and go to the gym more frequently. She soon began to go everyday, then she began to skip school. She compulsively began to exercise all the time so that her emotions would not grasp her. She ended up very weak, causing her to be anorexic and weigh only seventy-eight pounds when she found help. Kaminker enforces on how these two stories relate to many people in our society.
- Taranis, L. and Meyer, C. (July 2010). Perfectionism and compulsive exercise among female exercisers: High Standards or self-criticism? Personality & Individual Differences; Vol. 49 Issue 1, pg 3-7, p5. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete (www.utep.edu) In this article, Taranis and Meyer stress on the high standards that most females standardize to, causing them to excessively exercise in order to reach their standards of a “fit woman”. They discuss the issues of self-criticism, a problem than many women in our society today bestow. They begin to judge their bodies, endangering themselves into either an eating disorder or anorexia. The consequences of high standards and self-criticism causes perfectionism in a person, thus, becoming a compulsive exerciser. http://www.brainphysics.com/exercise-addiction.php
- Williams, M., PhD, (Clinical Psychologist) and Kenkins, H. (2000). American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision.
Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Association.
- Both authors mainly focus on the dangers of the problems of exercise dependence. They explain to the reader the differences of excessive exercise and exercise dependence. The majority of people that depend on exercise are more likely to be bulimic or anorexic; they also engage in excessive exercise in order to achieve weight loss. People who also are addicted to exercise might have the symptom of OCD. To reiterate, they discuss how harmful it is, physically and psychologically, when one exercises excessively.
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