A recent study conducted by researchers from the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill shows that excessive exercise is prevalent among anorexic women who vomit and use laxatives to lose weight. While it has been known that excessive exercise is linked to eating disorders, it is not known which patients are most likely to exercise to an extreme degree.

More than half of the anorexic women surveyed exercise excessively, which means that they exercise more than three hours a day. Some of them engage in extreme physical activities everyday even when sick or injured. This excessive drive to be thin endangers their health and their life as this can also lead to death. Based on this finding, researchers suggest that treatment of anorexia should be aimed at reducing anxiety and obsessive tendencies of anorexic women.

Anorexia is an eating disorder affecting mostly women. An anorexic woman often starves herself because of an intense fear of gaining weight. It is prevalent in more progressive societies where there is abundance of food and where thin is largely viewed as attractive. In the US, anorexia occurs to one out of 100-200 women in late adolescence and early adulthood.