Affective profiles of exercise episodes are associated with maladaptive and adaptive motivations for exercise

Objective: Maladaptive exercise (i.e., driven and/or compensatory exercise) is common in binge-spectrum eating disorders (EDs; e.g., bulimia nervosa, binge ED) and associated with adverse treatment outcomes. Alternatively, individuals with EDs are often also engaging in adaptive exercise (e.g., for enjoyment or health improvement), and increasing adaptive exercise may decrease ED symptoms. The current study aimed to understand which exercise episodes are likely to be maladaptive/adaptive so that interventions can appropriately decrease/increase maladaptive and adaptive exercise.

Method: We used latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify pre-exercise affective profiles of 661 exercise episodes among 84 individuals with binge-spectrum EDs and examined associations between LPA-identified profiles and subsequent exercise motivations using ecological momentary assessment.

Results: A two-profile solution best fit our data: Profile 1 (n = 174), 'positive affectivity,' and Profile 2 (n = 487), 'negative affectivity.' Episodes in the 'negative affectivity' profile were more likely to be endorsed as both driven and intended to influence body shape/weight. Episodes in the 'positive affectivity' profile were more likely to be endorsed as exercising for enjoyment.

Conclusions: Results support two phenotypes of exercise episodes, and differential associations of these phenotypes with adaptive and maladaptive motivations for exercise.