Playing sports is good for your health. At this point, everyone knows the multiple benefits that the reasonable practice of some sports has for our body since it helps, among others, to reduce obesity, a risk factor for many coronary diseases and diabetes, for example.

However, as happens in other circumstances, excesses are never good, and there is a point where this healthy habit can become an addiction known as vigorexia, muscular dysmorphia or inverse anorexia, among other names.

Vigorexia is a psychological disorder that, at present, has not yet been recognised as a psychological illness. However, experts point out some symptoms that it shares with other serious diseases, such as anorexia, with which it shares excessive concern for the figure. As explained by the Center for Care and Research in Socio-addictions (AIS), vigorous experts have a distorted view of their body and come to see themselves without muscle mass, flaccid, weak and very thin. “They have a very different image of themselves and contrary to what it is, leading them to feel a total rejection of their body,” they indicate.

As a consequence of this, from that moment on, the top obsession that these athletes will have will be to achieve the most significant muscular development. They will pursue it based on marathon days, doing sports (between 4 and 5 hours a day), controlling their diet very strictly, and consuming products that contain proteins to promote muscle mass development. However, although your environment will begin to see the changes in your body, they continue to be perceived as weak and unattractive.

road to addiction

A turning point and a series of circumstances tip the balance, and a healthy and balanced sport becomes harmful and an addiction. According to AIS, the warning signs that we are facing a disorder are:

• They exercise (particularly bodybuilding) obsessively and addictively, regardless of conditions or repercussions.
• They have an unrealistic image of themselves: they look unattractive, weak, thin and puny.
• The obsessive concern for their figure leads them to constantly look at themselves in the mirror, compare themselves with other classmates and weigh themselves on the scale several times a day.
• They have feelings of guilt and irritability when they cannot exercise or when someone criticises their activity.
• For them, sport is their life, and they can’t stop going to the gym for a day or stop exercising.
• They abandon their usual leisure and responsibility activities (low work performance, dismissal, school failure) to continue concentrating on practising sports.
• They gradually isolate themselves from their social and family environment, becoming introverted and with little social contact to dedicate themselves almost exclusively to exercising.
• They develop low self-esteem and present feelings of loneliness, failure and misunderstanding towards their environment.
• The person suffers numerous organic problems and physical injuries due to excessive sports practice.
• The disproportion between body parts is very common; thus, people with a very voluminous torso and neck make the head remain small in proportion.
• Vigorexicos often develop an eating disorder as a consequence due to the strict control they have over what they eat. They consume a lot of protein, carbohydrates, and little fat to increase muscle mass, leading to many metabolic disorders.
• The use of doping, anabolic and steroid products is also widespread. It seeks to improve performance and increase muscle volume. However, using these substances produces metabolic and health alterations, such as masculinisation and irregularities of the menstrual cycle in women, testicular atrophy, heart problems, decreased sperm formation, and acne.
• In the products they consume (dopants, steroids.), they invest a lot of money, sometimes not being able to assume the expense, which leads them to resort to the existing black market of fraudulent, adulterated products without health guarantees with the consequent danger for your health.

Differences between anorexia, bulimia and vigorexia

Anorexia, bulimia and vigorexia are behavioural disorders (food in the case of anorexia and bulimia and habits related to physical exercise in the case of vigorexia) produced by various factors that have to do with a distorted perception view of one’s own body or nervous binge eating due to anxiety. The three diseases share certain aspects but are different; however, they all represent severe physical and mental health risks.

The psychiatry expert defines anorexia and bulimia as “eating behaviour disorders characterised by patients’ exaggerated concern for their bodies and excessive fear of being obese, which is why They have an exaggerated weight control.

At the same time, bulimia is “the appearance of episodes of binge eating, usually high in calories, followed by guilt, leading to purging, such as inducing vomiting”. In the case of bulimia, “the body mass index is usually normal”.

Vigorexia is “an alteration of body image that leads people who suffer from it to think that they have a weak or loose appearance, despite being muscular .” This false perception generates behaviours such as “going to the gym excessively or developing an obsession with healthy food”.

Patient profile

Usually, people with these disorders “have low self-esteem and make their body their main source of identity .” Insecurity and the need for control are also recurrent attributes of patients suffering from these diseases.

The specialist in psychiatry explains that “anorexia usually begins during puberty and adolescence, while bulimia tends to appear later, around 20 years of age”. In the case of bulimia, he adds, “the triggering of negative emotions and stressful situations can trigger the feeling of lack of control, anxiety and the appearance of episodes of binge eating.”

Vigorexia, says the expert, “is usually more common in men between 18 and 35 years of age, of whom a high percentage go to the gym regularly, have a narcissistic profile and tend to be irritable and have aggressive attitudes.”