Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the risk of dependency on physical exercise in individual sportspeople and the relationship with body dissatisfaction and motivation. Two hundred and twenty-five triathletes, swimmers, cyclists, and athletics competitors aged 18 to 63 years old took part in the study, of which 145 were men (M = 35.57 ± 10.46 years) and 80 were women (M = 32.83 ± 10.31 years). The EDS-R (Exercise Dependence Scale-Revised) was used to study dependency on exercising, the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ) was used to study body dissatisfaction, the Behaviour Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire (BREQ-3) was used to determine the participants’ motivation and the BIAQ was used to analyse conducts of avoidance to body image. The obtained results show that 8.5% of the subjects have a risk of dependency on exercise and 18.2% tend to have corporal dissatisfaction, without meaningful differences in the kind of sport they practiced. However, there were important differences concerning the dependency on physical exercise (15% vs. 4.8%) and body dissatisfaction (31.1% vs. 11%) in relation to sex, with the higher percentages referring to women. Introjected regulation and the conduct of food restriction were predictor variables of the dependency on exercise and corporal dissatisfaction. Also, the number and duration of sessions; the age of the participants; the integrated, introjected, and external regulations surrounding social activities; and eating restraints could all predict dependence on physical exercise (DPE).
Highlights
Nowadays, the multitude of benefits associated with participating in a sport or physical exercise on a regular basis are known on physical, psychological, aesthetic and social levels [1,2,3,4]
The subscales are abstinence (e.g., I practice physical exercise to avoid feeling in bad humour), continuation (e.g., I practice exercise despite repeated physical problems), tolerance (e.g., I constantly increase the intensity of my physical practice to achieve the desired benefits or effects), lack of control (e.g., I am unable to reduce the total time that I practice physical exercise), reduction of other activities (e.g., I would like to practice more physical exercise rather than being with my family and friends), time (e.g., I dedicate a significant amount of time to practicing physical exercise), time (e.g., I spend a lot of time on physical activity), and desired effects (e.g., I practice physical exercise for longer than I usually want to)
It can be observed that there were significant differences in age, with swimmers being the youngest; in occupation, with triathletes more likely to have an occupation; the level of study, with triathletes being more likely to have studied at a higher level; years of training, with swimmers having the greatest percentage of individuals with more than 10 years of training, despite being the youngest group, followed by cyclists; and the condition of being federated, being greater in swimmers and triathletes than in the other two modalities
Summary
The multitude of benefits associated with participating in a sport or physical exercise on a regular basis are known on physical, psychological, aesthetic and social levels [1,2,3,4]. Ogden, Veale and Summers [10] defined the dependence on physical exercise (DPE, hereafter) as a combination of biomedical characteristics similar to those of addictions, such as withdrawal symptoms and stereotyped behaviours in addition to other psychosocial aspects such as interference with social/family life and positive gratifications. Research along this line, such as that of Sussman, Lisha, and Griffiths [11] has found similarities between sports addiction and drug addiction
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