Psychological and Behavioral Differences among Females Classified as Bulimic, Obligatory Exerciser and Normal Control

Abstract

The compulsion to maintain a lean body shape while living in a society obsessed with food may encourage the use of dieting, binge eating and purging behaviors in young women. The body of literature on bulimia nervosa (Boskind-Lodahl and Sirlin 1977; Fairburn and Cooper 1984; Katzman and Wolchik 1984; Scott 1988) clearly establishes its relationship to the current American fashion for thinness and the value placed on physical attractiveness for self-esteem. This notion promotes a multitude of weight control strategies ranging from self-starvation (Humphrey 1983; Brownell and Foreyth 1986) to cigarette smoking (Klesges and Klesges 1988), many of which may have a profound influence on maintenance of good health. Similar to weight control, exercise behavior could be viewed as falling on a continuum from reasonable efforts to maintain physical fitness to a preoccupation with exercise that is far out of proportion to the expected benefits of a 30-minute, three to five day a week routine. Characteristics of obligatory exercise have been described by several researchers and include maintaining a rigid schedule of intense exercise; resisting temptation to lapse into nonexercising; feelings of guilt and anxiety when the exercise schedule is violated; compensatory increase in exercise to make up for lapses; pushing oneself even when tired, ill, or injured; mental preoccupation with exercise; and detailed recordkeeping on exercise (Yates et al. 1983; Blumenthal et al. 1984; Nudelman et al. 1988). In a competitive society, obsessive exercise behaviors may be linked to the development of rigid dietary guidelines while one strives toward the "optimal" lean-fat ratio of body composition.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)