50 to 80 per cent of people who have anorexia experience excessive exercise

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Around 50 to 80 per cent of people who have anorexia also experience excessive or compulsive exercise.  Canberra's Lili Mooney was one of those, but now running keeps her mental health on track.

Transcript

00:00 Lily Mooney looks forward to her weekly outings with her local running group, but she admits

00:06 her relationship with exercise hasn't always been this positive.

00:10 I did then start to use running and exercise in general as a way of controlling my guilty

00:19 feelings when it came to eating.

00:21 Lily developed an unhealthy relationship with food when she was 12, and she intensified

00:26 her exercise routine through her teenage years, masking an underlying eating disorder.

00:31 When I was diagnosed with anorexia, I wasn't allowed to run anymore, and I used to just

00:37 go out and walk for hours and just do these bizarre exercises in secret.

00:44 People who are exercise dependent are four times more likely also to experience an eating

00:49 disorder compared to the general population.

00:52 But experts are worried those figures will only worsen with the increased use of social

00:56 media, which often glorifies overtraining.

01:00 Social media isn't allowing people the space to actually listen in and tune in to their

01:05 body and do what's right for them and for their health and wellbeing, and obviously

01:10 that's a really dangerous thing.

01:11 After recovering from her eating disorder, Lily began running again.

01:15 While it initially brought back her traumatic past, now she says running, and the community

01:20 that comes with it, plays a big part in maintaining a positive mindset.

01:24 My mum, who I think joined me because she didn't want me to get in any habits of exercising

01:30 obsessively alone again, started to run as well.

01:34 And we really want that relationship with exercise to be that we're actually in charge

01:40 and controlling the exercise, and the exercise isn't controlling us.

01:43 A resilient runner, taking life one step at a time.

01:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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