Exercise and diet therapy: Psychotherapists' beliefs and practices.

Abstract

Two hundred thirty-two members of Division 29 of the American Psychological Association (46.4% of those randomly sampled) responded to a survey concerning their assessment and recommendation practices relating to nutrition and to exercise and physical fitness. Respondents reported assessing and recommending diet and exercise practices less frequently than other health behaviors, but many indicated conditions amenable to exercise and diet recommendations. Few therapists had received education in exercise and nutrition, but more than half believed that diet and exercise should be required as a component of the graduate school curriculum. The topics of exercise and nutrition have received considerable attention in recent years, as anecdotal and scientific evidence of benefits mounts. Findings of relations among exercise, diet, and cardiovascular risk reduction have stimulated research on other possible benefits of exercise and diet regimens. Many studies suggesting that exercise and nutrition therapies enhance psychological well-being have appeared. If psychotherapists were reading the research literature on the effects of exercise and nutrition on mental health, they would be encountering consistent positive findings (e.g., Folkins & Sime, 1981; Simons, Epstein, McGowna, & Kupfer, 1985). In addition, although the effect of nutrition on mental health has been much less intensely studied than has the effect of exercise, a number of writers have enthusiastically claimed that improved nutrition can enhance psychological well-being (e.g., Cheraskin & Ringsdorf, 1976; Pfeiffer, 1976; Sheinkin, Schachter, & Hutton, 1979). A group of mental health practitioners to whom the literature on exercise, nutrition, and mental health is especially relevant is that of practicing psychotherapists, who daily have the opportunity to prescribe exercise and nutrition therapy to clients seeking help. Actively prescribing such remedies would suggest that practicing therapists are convinced of its utility for treatment in the context of the present scientific and anecdotal evidence, whether justifiably so or not; the absence of such prescribing would suggest the absence of such conviction. In either