Exercise Addiction in Practitioners of Endurance Sports: A Literature Review
Autor: | Abel Nogueira; Olga Molinero; Alfonso Salguero; Sara Márquez |
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Sprache: | Englisch |
Veröffentlicht: |
2018 |
Quelle: | Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
Online Zugang: |
https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01484/full https://doaj.org/toc/1664-1078 1664-1078 doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01484 https://doaj.org/article/88b3313528314f36abb66e5201018418 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01484 https://doaj.org/article/88b3313528314f36abb66e5201018418 |
Erfassungsnummer: | ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:88b3313528314f36abb66e5201018418 |
Zusammenfassung
Practice of endurance sports/activities has gained most devotees over recent decades, thanks to its capacity to maintain and improve health. However, their characteristics and accessibility have facilitated the emergence of addictive behaviors. Excessive practicing can lead to adverse physical and psychological effects seriously prejudicial to health, to the extent that individuals are unable to control this behavior. Recognizing that exercise addiction is still a controversial concept, the aim of the present review is to analyze the state of research into addictive exercise behaviors, specifically centering on running and endurance sports. To this end, a search covering article written in English and dated from 2010 onward was carried out in the Pubmed, Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCOhost databases. Of a total of 2,675 articles in the four databases, 25 were eligible for the final review. The studies reviewed confirmed that excessive practice could encourage the appearance of addictive behaviors and health problems. Most research has reported no age or sex differences in exercise dependence among endurance sport practitioners; however, obsessive passion and dedication to sports activities may be predictors for addiction to exercise. Owing to terminological confusion and the variety of tools used to measure addiction, figures for prevalence differ widely among studies, with values quoted ranging from 3 to 42%. Furthermore, it is clear that there are problems in delimiting, defining and diagnosing this sort of behavior, which has led to addiction to exercise not yet being considered a behavioral disorder.