Emotion Dysregulation Mediates the Relationship Between Psychological Distress, Symptoms of Exercise Addiction and Eating Disorders: A Large-scale Survey Among Fitness Center Users

In several theoretical models, exercise addiction is linked to emotion regulation and eating disorders. However, to date, the role of emotion regulation in exercise addiction is poorly understood. The present study aimed to examine the relationship between the risk of exercise addiction and emotion regulation by exploring the mediating role of emotion dysregulation and eating disorders between psychological distress and exercise addiction. Based on an online survey of 1,790 regular fitness center attendees, the results revealed that emotion dysregulation is positively related to the risk of exercise addiction. Exercisers who report more symptoms of exercise addiction exhibit elevated levels of psychological distress. The results also demonstrate for the first time that difficulty in emotion regulation is a mediator between psychological distress and exercise addiction; the associated model explains approximately 53% of the variance. However, gender differences also emerged. The mediation role of emotion dysregulation in the relationship between psychological distress and exercise addiction was statistically significant and explained 75.3% of the total indirect effect in men, but it was not significant in women. The difficulties in emotion regulation mediated the relationship between psychological symptoms and eating disorders in women and explained 52.7% of the total indirect effect compared to 17.3% in men. These findings support the affect regulation models of exercise addiction, such as the “cognitive appraisal hypothesis,” the “affect regulation hypothesis,” and the “interactional model.”