Eating disorders, Body Image, obesity and Non-Pharmacological Inventions with Emphasis on Physical Exercise: An Integrative Review and Clinical Implications

Abstract

Background: Eating disorders, obesity, and body image has a relationship with health outcomes along the life, however the prescription of physical exercise as tool against eating disorders need to be further explored. Objective: To investigate the relationship between eating disorders, obesity, and body image distortion and discuss non-pharmacological interventions based on physical exercise and their clinical implications. Methods: The search conducted in Medline and Scopus databases, in English and Portuguese of the last 10 years involving studies with human approaches, integrative and systematic reviews with free full text resulted in 2049 manuscripts, after the application of all exclusion criteria 1992 articles were excluded, and 57 articles were used in this review. Results: The results suggest that binge eating anorexia and bulimia are the most common disorders with increasing worldwide prevalence. Additionally, it was verified that physical exercise can be considered a non-drug intervention as an adjunct measure in this respecting necessary care. Therefore, although not all people have the whistles to receive exercise as an intervention the prescription of physical exercise, when done by a multidisciplinary team, with slow progression and strictly monitored can be a valuable to the treatment of eating disorders. Conclusions: The physical exercise is a valuable tool against several eat disorders, improve the body image, fight against the obesity due their power of decrease the eat binge. Nonetheless, the increasement of caloric expenditure during and after the session leading to a fat loss and could be a central non-pharmacological invention in this scenario.