Eating disorder prevention used to be a closed-door business, and one that was never fully defined or addressed. Put simply, such disorders hadn’t been classified or diagnosed properly until recently. In today’s world we have opened the locked door of honest and constructive discussion, making eating disorder prevention and recovery an accessible topic. Media consciousness and heightened self-awareness has made this possible through the last few years, thankfully. This is in part due to the overarching need that the thousands of individuals who struggle with these disorders desperately desire. Educating an individual on their disease is the first step to recovery. However, while there tends to be ample awareness concerning those who struggle with certain self-destructive behaviors, there is one that is still lurking below the radar.

Bulimia and Anorexia Nervosa are the most commonly disorders associated with compulsive behaviors and are the two that have systems in place to help one recover, however there is another disorder that isn’t as openly discussed- but that is just as potentially harmful. Compulsive exercisers may be hard to define, but it is a true and dangerous disorder. For athletes this is especially true. While it isn’t technically defined as an eating disorder, it is a means to control and punish one’s self into a physical mode of digression, overuse, and injury.

Losing weight is the ultimate goal for compulsive exerciser, even to the point of chronic soreness, strains, muscle tears, fractures, Tendinitis, and overuse. For athletes, especially those who used to be at the top of their game, and have since stopped competing professionally or are still trying to compete with themselves, are in the habit of constantly comparing their bodies, endurance capabilities, and physique to the peak of their athletic career. This is extremely unhealthy, and unfair to the body.

For the compulsive exerciser, they are in constant fear of not getting a work out in. They will forgo social events, withdraw into isolation, obsess and calorie count, push and push. They also live with the fear that if they even miss one workout all of their hard work will disappear and they will gain weight. For those who started out exercising as a way to add healthy balance to their life, there is a threshold in which it can become obsessive. Once this line is crossed a compulsive exerciser behavior will find no more joy in their workouts, and will use them to punish their own bodies for lax behavior or to remind themselves of past successes in light of current “failure”.

Pilates is an exercise that addresses diseases of the mind. Certain patterns of thought that have been developed over time, much like that of a drug addict dying for a fix, make themselves apparent through ruts of neuromuscular thought patterns which have been trudged deep into the mind. It will take a healthy balance of rest, and mind-body assimilation to undo what the mind has habitually become a slave to.

While deep-breathing techniques and gentle stretching, which is found in Pilates, may not be the cure-all for those that suffer from compulsive exercising, it is a great step to developing a sound holistic approach to self-love and body acceptance.