Analysis of exercise addiction levels of individuals attending gym regularly

The aim of this study is to examine exercise addiction levels of individuals who attend gym regularly. Sample of the study, which used correlational survey model, one of the quantitative research methods, consists of 422 volunteering individuals, 176 women and 243 men registered to gyms in the city centre of Çorum. All participants were informed about the study prior to the implementation of the survey and were asked to fill in the survey form consisting of Personal Information Form and Exercise Addiction Scale. The data were collected by the researcher through reaching participants one by one during the 2021-2022 Spring term. Individuals who participated in the study were given Personal Information Form, which was prepared by the researcher, and 17-item Exercise Addiction Scale (EAS), which was developed by Tekkurşun-Demir et al. (2018). Survey method was used as data collection tool. In data analysis, Shapiro-Wilk and Kolmogorov Smirnov normality tests were used before starting statistical analyses. The data were found to be normally distributed; T-Test, one-way ANOVA and Post Hoc LSD test were used to find out differences between group means and p<0,05 level of significance was taken for all statistical analyses. In all sub-factors of exercise addiction, statistically significant differences were found in terms of gender, family level of income, individuals' duration of attending gym, the state of doing exercise regularly and marital status (p<0.05). As a conclusion, the present study found that individuals who attended gym regularly were in the dependent group in all measured variables, women had higher exercise addiction level than men, individuals who had an income higher than 6000 TL had higher exercise addiction level than those who had lower income, exercise addiction increased as educational status increased, individuals who attended gyms for 1-2 years and married individuals who exercised regularly had higher exercise addiction levels.