On the Pitfalls of Conceptualizing Excessive Physical Exercise As an Addictive Disorder: Commentary on Dinardi Et Al. (2021)

Overview

Journal J Behav Addict

Publisher Akademiai Kiado

Specialties Psychiatry
Social Sciences

Date 2022 Mar 2

PMID 35234660

Authors

Damien Brevers

Pierre Maurage

Taylor Kohut

Jose C Perales

Joel Billieux

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

This commentary challenges some of the proposals made in the opinion paper entitled "The expanded interactional model of exercise addiction" by Dinardi, Egorov, and Szabo (2021). We first question the usefulness of the (expanded) interactional model of exercise addiction to determine the psychological processes underlying distress and functional impairment in excessive physical exercise. We then consider the authors' use of the Self-Determination Theory to model exercise addiction, which risks the misclassification of strenuous, but adaptive, patterns of physical exercise as exercise addiction. We finally address broader concerns regarding the idea that maladaptive exercising could be conceptualized as an addictive disorder.

Citing Articles

Operationalization and measurement of compulsivity across video gaming and gambling behavioral domains.

Muela I, Navas J, Barrada J, Lopez-Guerrero J, Rivero F, Brevers D BMC Psychol. 2023; 11(1):407.

PMID: 37990335 PMC: 10664636. DOI: 10.1186/s40359-023-01439-1.

Thinking beyond cut-off scores in the assessment of potentially addictive behaviors: A brief illustration in the context of binge-watching.

Billaux P, Billieux J, Baggio S, Maurage P, Flayelle M J Behav Addict. 2023; 12(2):303-308.

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Apples and oranges in the basket of a clinical model for exercise addiction: Rebuttal to Brevers et al. (2022).

Szabo A, Dinardi J, Egorov A J Behav Addict. 2022; 11(2):240-242.

PMID: 35895607 PMC: 9295240. DOI: 10.1556/2006.2022.00036.

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