Compulsive Exercise - Eating Disorders

A LEADING eating disorder specialist, has said many young people have become obsessed with exercise and are pushing themselves to "extreme degrees" in order to lose weight.

Young people, both male and female, now suffer from "compulsive exercise" which is disrupting their family, work and social life, according to Dr. Sarah Prasad, an eating disorders specialist at St, Patrick's Hospital, Dublin.

"For a lot of my patients, their motivation to exercise is all about the drive to lose weight and they certainly take that to extreme degrees," said Dr Prasad.
She has patients ranging in ages from 18 to 52 but says she is aware of 12- and 13-year-olds suffering with such issues.

"For example, they can develop very obsessional and rigid patterns around exercise which means they might need to go to the gym for an hour every morning and after that they need to go walk a certain amount or certain distance. They might do a yoga video then after that.
"It's all driven by this fear that if they don't do it, they're going to put on weight. Or if they don't stick to that very regimented exercise routine, they will then compensate in other ways," she said.

"In my day-to-day life, I would see young boys and girls and you can see that their Body Mass Index is very low," she told the Irish Independent. ".. my concern is gym instructors have them doing all sorts of vigorous physical activities when they should be saying 'we need to get your weight up first'."

She added that often young people's overtraining was a "manifestation of other things going on for individuals, like anxiety or depression".

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