Exerciser Addiction

Can you imagine the hardest workout you have ever done, would you ever do that workout every day for 3-4 hours a day or even more? Well this is what people are willing to do just so that they can ¨fit in¨. Giving the 100 percent when exercising can produce great results, however over-exercising can open you up to injury and illness and sometimes even death. If you are putting in too many hours training too hard for sports or just to look ¨good, ¨ your body may begin to respond negatively. This is more common in our time because in our environment we want to be socially adapted to what society’s ¨perfect body image¨ is, so we try everything that possible in order to fit in. ¨There is nothing inherently distressing about being overweight, but, it is a physical characteristic considered unattractive in our society. It is the social stigma attached to being overweight that may increase psychological distress.¨ (Hayes-Ross, 387)
It is very common for people to exercise too much and for the wrong reasons, once they become addicted, it is not that they want to, but that they have to exercise. People often start over exercising because they want to lose weight in order to look good, or they might be going through a hard moment and they think that by exercising they will feel better. It becomes a problem when their self-image connects to their ability to exercise, so they begin to base their value as human beings on how much they exercise o how much time they spend time working out. ¨Compulsive exercisers think that they must exercise every single day to stay the same shape and size¨. (Willet 25)
Exercise is very good and has many positive effects on happiness and self-esteem and it also helps us maintain ourselves healthy; ¨regular...

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...ion where we relate pretty with unrealistic and unattainable images of a ¨perfect body.¨ As I had already mention before, Hayes and Ross said that there’s nothing wrong with being overweight yet is the social stigma or prototype where being overweight is considered unattractive in our society. (387) In society thin people, are seen as attractive, strong, successful and even desirable. In the other hand overweight people are seen as lazy, socially inept, and lonely. We also have to look into what kind of activities people do, for example ballet, cheerleading, modeling, gymnastics, swimming, running, etc. they concentrate in thinness and body shape. People involved in these kinds of activities might be more exposed to developing eating disorders and becoming compulsive exercisers in order to fall in the category or social figure that represents those activities.