Exercise Dependence

Summary Exercise can become a compulsive behaviour and harmful to an individual. This review proposes diagnostic criteria for ‘exercise dependence’ to facilitate recognition in Sports clinics and further research. The importance of diagnosing exercise dependence lies in the prevention of morbidity and rarely mortality if exercise is continued in the presence of illness or injury. There is insufficient evidence to postulate opioid peptides as a physiological basis of dependence. A distinction is made between a primary form of exercise dependence and that which is secondary to an eating disorder.