A compulsive exerciser might be someone who runs 60 miles and eats 5,000 calories per day, comprised of apple slices and rice cakes, said Alayne Yates, a former professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Arizona.
Yates spoke in a public lecture titled "The Over Committed Athlete: Heroic Achievement in Scholars and Athletes" to an audience of over 50 people in Cook Auditorium last night.
Compulsive exercisers are generally healthy people who get "hooked on athleticism" and cannot stop exercising - even when it becomes detrimental to their health, as in cases of injury, Yates said.
She said the condition is a disorder when the exercising "impairs their functioning in other parts of their lives."
"They felt they had to control their bodies and do without food, rest and care," she said. "They did this so much that it seemed they were beating on their bodies."
She said compulsive exercising is also considered a disorder when it takes over all of a person's free time and he or she no longer has time for a social life.
The kinds of sports that foster excessive exercising are ones that emphasize leanness, individual competition and have tight fitting uniforms, like swimming suits.
She said the sports that most often led to compulsive athleticism are weight lifting, body building, lightweight crew, swimming and cycling.
Yates said many of the causes of compulsive exercising are sociocultural. "There's a politically correct appearance in this country," she said.
Yates said 75 percent of college women say they are dissatisfied with their bodies, but only half of them are overweight.
"The only time when it's okay to be chubby is infancy and toddlerhood," she said. "By the age of six, children already prefer long and lean bodies."
She said surveys showed 37 percent of grade-school children wanted to lose weight. Yates said most of these ideas probably come from "parental role modeling."
The psychological traits of this disorder are perfectionism and persistence, Yates said.
Yates focused her research on runners, who she said often engage in the sport to retain a certain body image.
She mentioned one female athlete who said she runs because "when I run, I can feel the fat burn up in my stomach." Another runner told Yates, "if I don't run, it's as if I'm full of dirty dishwater."
The speech was sponsored by the MacNamee Memorial Trust, a fund dedicated to providing mental health education and supplementing the cost of psychiatric counseling.
The speech previewed a conference, held today at the College, that will deal with eating disorders and compulsive athleticism. Registration is at 8 a.m. in the Alumni Hall Foyer in the Hopkins Center for the Performing Arts.
