Dissimilarities in eating attitudes, body image distortion, depression, and self-esteem between high-intensity male runners and women with bulimia nervosa

Abstract

It has been suggested that high-intensity exercise regimens in males bear a resemblance to the features of eating disorders and that male runners may resemble women with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa with regard to eating and weight attitudes, negative body image, and negative psychological adjustment. Twenty high-intensity male runners were compared with 20 sedentary-moderate exercising male controls and 20 women with bulimia nervosa. Compared with the bulimia nervosa subjects, the male runners were not anxious about eating, overly preoccupied with food, excessive in binge-eating or purging behavior, negatively preoccupied with their weight, intent on losing weight, high on personality traits presumed to underlie eating disorders, nor depressed or low in self-esteem. The male groups of high-intensity runners and controls were not significantly different on any measure. These results suggest that high-intensity exercising in males is not analogous to anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.