Balanced sporting activity should be considered a resource in the treatment of eating disorders (ED), in particular of the BED and in obesity but also, if conducted and guided by expert preparers and rehabilitators, in some forms of anorexia and in bulimia.</p> Objective: However, when physical activity becomes compulsive, an end in itself and which interferes predominantly in daily activities, aimed essentially at energy consumption to force weight loss up to marked decay, it becomes a pathological instrument, an elimination course, a form purging and falls within the diagnostic criteria in bulimia and anorexia nervosa.
The 2012-2013 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III (N=36,309) included respondents who met the criteria for specific lifetime DSM-5 EDs and answered questions regarding help-seeking for their ED symptoms (anorexia nervosa [AN]: n=275; bulimia nervosa [BN]: n=91; and binge-eating disorder [BED]: n=256).