Benefits, Risks and Gender Differences in Sport, and Exercise Dependence: Key Role of Alexithymia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The literature has long highlighted the benefits of sport, but too much sport could indicate a dependence without a substance, namely exercise dependence. The literature has only recently investigated this issue and therefore several questions are open, particularly with regard to psychopathological significance and gender differences. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether young subjects (M = 20 years) with a risk of exercise dependency and non-dependent symptomatic display other behavioural and psychological suffering and discomforts, or whether such an investment in physical activity is compatible with a framework of relative well-being; and if there are differences related to gender. A total of 396 subjects were involved in this study. Exercise Dependence Scale, Toronto Alexithymia Scale, Subjective Happiness Scale, Satisfaction with Life Scale and an ad hoc questionnaire with information relating to the consumption of alcohol, soft and hard drugs, quality of sleep and nutrition, affective and friendship relationships, hobbies, presence of psychological or physical disorders, motivations for sporting activity, and any traumatic experiences were used. With regard to the Exercise Dependence Scale (EDS), the prevalence of subjects at risk of exercise dependence was 1.5% and that of non-dependents symptomatic was 31.3%. Considering only men, the percentage of subjects at risk of exercise dependence rose to 3% and that of non-dependents symptomatic to 47.9%. Our data support the hypothesis that the risk of exercise dependence and the symptomatic condition without dependence can occur in situations of relative well-being (happiness, satisfaction, relationships) without significant associations with other problematic behaviours. Modest consumption of soft drugs is reported in non-dependent symptomatic subjects. The hypothesis of increased levels of alexithymia is confirmed but limited to the male gender. Gender differences are confirmed in the frequency and motivation to practice sport and in the risk of dependence. It is important that the assessment of addiction risk is integrated with the assessment of alexithymia and personal and social resources over time.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".