Mental Health in Elite Student Athletes: Exploring the Link Between Training Volume and Mental Health Problems in Norwegian College and University Students.

Michael Grasdalsmoen,Benjamin Clarsen,Børge Sivertsen

doi:10.3389/fspor.2022.817757

Abstract

ObjectivesTo examine mental health problems among elite athletes in a student population, compared to the general student population, and to explore the association between weekly hours of training across mental health indicators.MethodsData are from a national study from 2018 of all college and university students in Norway. Participants indicated if they considered themselves to be an elite athlete, and how many hours per week they trained. Mental health problems were assessed using several well-validated questionnaires.ResultsAmong 50,054 students, 1.3% identified themselves as elite athletes. Both male and female elite athletes had generally better mental health across most health outcomes, reporting fewer mental health problems, less loneliness, higher satisfaction with life, more positive affect, and fewer alcohol problems. Elite athletes in team sports had slightly better mental health compared to athletes of individual sports. Increased hours of weekly exercise was associated with better mental health. However, there was generally little to be gained from increasing the amount of training from 7–10 hours/week to 14+ hours per week. Female athletes who trained 14 or more hours per week reported poorer mental health across most outcome measures.ConclusionThis study showed that both male and female elite athletes generally had better mental health across a range of health outcomes, when compared to the general student population. The study also found a positive dose-response relationship between weekly hours of training and mental health, but also a worsening of mental health for females at the extreme end of exercise continuum. The self-report nature of this student sample means that care should be taken when generalizing to other studies of elite athletes.

Highlights

Physical exercise has unquestionable benefits for health, and taking part in regular exercise has been shown to prevent a host of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes (Lee et al, 2012)
The overall pattern was that the more hours of physical exercise, the better the mental health and higher life satisfaction, there was little to be gained from increasing the amount of training at the extreme end the exercise continuum
Recent years have shown a rapid increased in high quality studies in this field, and with several high profile athletes reporting struggling with mental health issues, especially recently during the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 (Park, 2021; Peter, 2021), the times have changed in terms of how we regard the importance of mental health of elite athletes

Summary

Introduction

Physical exercise has unquestionable benefits for health, and taking part in regular exercise has been shown to prevent a host of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes (Lee et al, 2012). Despite overwhelming evidence of the many health benefits of physical exercise, it has been suggested that there might be a curvilinear relationship between the amount of physical exercise and exercise-induced improvements of somatic health (Mons et al, 2014; Williams and Thompson, 2014; Schnohr et al, 2015). A recent national study of all college and university students in Norway found that the more physical exercise, the better; both in terms of exercise frequency and duration (Grasdalsmoen et al, 2020a). None of these studies focused on individuals at the extreme end of the exercise spectrum, elite athletes

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