Exercise Addiction in British Sport Science Students

The aim of the current research was to compare the prevalence of self-reported symptoms of exercise addiction in sports sciences students with those of the general exercising population. A total of 455 participants (261 sports science students; 194 controls) completed the Exercise Addiction Inventory. Sport science students had significantly higher mean scores on the Exercise Addiction Inventory than exercisers from the general population. It was also found that 6.9% (18 out of 261) sport science students were possibly addicted to exercise compared to only 3.6% (7 out of 194) of the general exercising population, a result that approached statistical significance (p = 0.09). These findings raise the possibility that sports science students may be more susceptible to some components of exercise addiction than exercisers more generally.