engleski

Exercise addiction: features and opportunities for preventive investment and research

Regular physical activity plays a crucial role in health maintenance, but also prevention of different aspects of behavioral disorders and mental issues. However, dark side of this ‘’positive’’ behavior is often ignored and repressed in the society. Recently, negative effects of exercising are more investigated in the scientific circles with some of them related to exercise addiction. Thus, it is important to acknowledge that excessive exercise has the potential to have adverse effects on both aspects of health. The empirical and scholastic discussion of excessive physical activity focuses on obsessive and compulsive exercising. However, this review is emphasizing that excessive physical exercise fits the typical and most common characteristics of behavioral addictions. The aim of this review is to synthesize the current knowledge on symptomology, diagnosis, etiology and epidemiology in the world and specifically in Croatia. Also, the goal is to give an emphasize on behavioral determinants of exercise addiction as well as its risk factors and social context and determinants in the world and Croatia that contribute to its onset and maintenance. This paper also contains an overview of some of the existing measures in Europe and Croatia related to the promotion of physical activity and its connection to prevention of mental health disorders. These measures and activities are crucial for prevention of bihevioral and mental disorders especially connected with this problem, such as eating disorders and binge eating. Also, it is important to underline a multicomponent level of this problem and the need for wide range of sectors to be all connected in the efforts to sustain and prevent this disorder from the beggining and not to mix it with the undeniable benefits of physical activity. Given its unexplorance in account, this poster will show in more details the contribution of this topic to the field of prevention.

exercise addiction ; prevention ; mental health

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