In a society that strives for appearance, fitness is increasingly viewed as a means to reach a certain aesthetic ideal, rather than a way to improve health and physical performance. Every day millions of posts appear on social media promoting a visual representation of apparently fit, healthy and 'perfect' bodies. Combining personal accounts, clinical cases, and scientific research, this book explores how such new trends in society can lead to the development of exercise addiction and body image disorders. It explains how such a concern with physical appearance can act as a precursor or be symptomatic of other conditions, such as eating disorders, mood disorders, and the use of performance and image enhancing drugs. It highlights throughout the importance of raising awareness amongst health professionals, including psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health nurses, social workers and primary care physicians, of this growing challenge to prevent harm and improve treatment.
Section 1. From exercise to addiction: an introduction to the phenomenon; 1. Exercise addiction: evolution and challenges for its recognition as a clinical disorder Álvaro Sicilia, Manuel Alcaraz-Ibáñez, Adrian Paterna and Mark D. Griffiths; 2. From exercise to addiction: the fitspirational era of image and performance-enhancement Stefano Pallanti and Alice C. English; 3. The Covid-19 pandemic: a novel risk factor for exercise addiction and related disorders Franca Ceci, Francesco Di Carlo, Julius Burkauskas, Giovanni Martinotti and Massimo Di Giannantonio; 4. Excessive exercise and image- and performance-enhancing drug use among sports disciplines and the role of mind-body training Hironobu Fujiwara and Mami Shibata; 5. The ideal of the perfect body: appearance anxiety, excessive exercising and use of image- and performance-enhancing drugs Artemisa R. Dores and Irene P. Carvalho; 6. Exercise, fitspiration and the role of social media Ilaria De Luca, Dorotea Cicconcelli, Valentina Giorgetti and Ornella Corazza; 7. Eating disorders and over-exercise Charlotte Taylor, Kate Brown and Konstantinos Ioannidis; 8. Exercise and the use of image- and performance-enhancing drugs within the gym environment Jim McVeigh, Martin Chandler and Gemma Anne Yarwood; 9. Bodybuilding, exercise and image- and performance-enhancing drug use during the Covid-19 pandemic Honor D. Townshend and Anna Tippett; 10. How to treat exercise addiction: psychological interventions and new pharmacological perspectives Ilaria De Luca, Attilio Negri and Giuseppe Bersani; Section 2. Reaching the extreme with exercise: a collection of clinical case studies 11. Being versus appearing: two sides of the same coin? A case report Artemisa R. Dores and Pedro Morgado; 12. Reducing excessive exercise behaviour using online Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy: the case of a middle-aged adult Merve Denizci Nazlıgül; 13. The story of my life Thomas Brosnan; 14. Money Honey: an interview with an 'informed' patient Silvia Rossato, Pierluigi Simonato and Angela Scoppettone; Section 3. Exploring the motivations behind exercise addiction 15. Bodybuilding saved my life Andrea Corbett; 16. An interview with James Hollingshead: exploring the balance between focus, professionalism and addiction Roisin Mooney; 17. An interview with Dave Croslands: a life with performance-enhancing drugs Valeria Catalani; 18. Being comfortable in your own skin Oluyinka Idowu.
Ornella Corazza is a Professor of Addiction Science at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Here she leads multidisciplinary teams looking at drugs and other behavioural addictions. She is the President of the International Society for the Study of Emerging Drugs (ISSED) and serves as an expert advisor for national policy makers as well as international bodies, such as the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime, the European Monitoring Agency for Drug and Drug Addictions, and the World Anti-Doping Agency. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal for Emerging Trends in Drugs, Addictions, and Health. Artemisa Rocha Dores is a Coordinator Professor of Psychology at the School of Health, Polytechnic of Porto, Portugal. She is also a researcher at the Rehabilitation Research Center of the Polytechnic of Porto and at the Neuropsychophysiology Laboratory, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto. She is a member of the supervisory board of the Portuguese Society of Neuropsychology (SNPsy).
