\u201cAlways do your best!\u201d\u2014The relationship between food addiction, exercise dependence, and perfectionism in amateur athletes

C Hauck,B Cook,T Ellrott,M Schipfer

doi:10.1007/s12662-019-00609-x

Abstract

ObjectiveFood addiction is discussed as a substance-related addictive disorder, which is prevalent in normal and underweight subjects. Addictions often co-occur. It was suggested that food addiction and exercise dependence (behavioral addiction), may co-occur in vulnerable athletes. This assumption was made since the eating behavior of athletes in certain situations is similar to the eating behavior seen in food addiction. In addition, exercise dependence may play a significant role in individuals’ eating related pathologies, and thus possibly also in food addiction. Athletes may be an interesting population to examine the co-occurrence of food and exercise addictions, as athletes represent a group that is potentially at-risk for both, eating problems and exercise dependence. Perfectionism is a construct that has been implicated in both, exercise dependence and eating disorders. Current study explores potential relationships among the two addictive disorders food addiction and exercise dependence—with perfectionism being the common thread between the two.MethodA total of 1022 German speaking amateur athletes completed an online questionnaire consisting of the questionnaires Yale Food Addiction Scale 2.0, Questionnaire to diagnose exercise-dependence in endurance sports and Multidimensional inventory of perfectionism in sport.ResultA mediator effect of exercise dependence on the relationship between perfectionism and food addiction was found. Approximately 4 % (positive)/6 % (negative) of the variance in food addiction were accounted for by the mediator.ConclusionThe appearance of food addiction in normal/underweight individuals may partially be explained by sports-related reasons, e.g. exercise dependence and perfectionism.

Highlights

Physical activity is beneficial to health (e.g., World HealthOrganization[WHO], 2011)
Correlations were used to determine the relationship between food addiction symptoms (M = 0.00, SD = 1.98), exercise dependence scores (M = 24.25, SD = 4.09), positive perfectionism scores (M = 3.60, SD = 1.44), and negative perfectionism scores (M = 2.40, SD = 1.15)
The finding here of a mediation relationship for exercise dependence has several implications that may inform whether food addiction is an eating disorder variant, the need for more research on specific populations such as athletes, and clinical implications that should account for psychological variables as well as eating to fuel athletic performance outcomes

Summary

Introduction

Physical activity is beneficial to health (e.g., World HealthOrganization[WHO], 2011). Some individuals engage in problematic patterns of physical activity (defined as exercise dependence) that subsequently lead to various adverse effects (Cook, Hausenblas, & Freimuth, 2014), including disordered eating (Cook, Hausenblas, Tuccitto, & Giacobbi, 2011). Little is known about factors that could explain when exercise may develop into exercise dependence and lead to other related detrimental outcomes, such as disordered eating. Little is known about such relationships with emerging patterns of problematic eating quantified as food addiction (Gearhardt, Corbin, & Brownell, 2009a). More research is needed to determine potential mediating factors that may explain associations between problematic exercising (e.g., exercise dependence) and problematic eating (e.g., food addiction)

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion