answer:I think it’s a little different for everyone (of course) but in general I think it’s positive as long as the person is feeling good about their efforts instead of feeling bad about whatever compromises or failures come along. Essentially there needs to be a balance. For example it can be positive if the results you’re getting motivate you to continue but too many people fall into punishing themselves for the times they don’t work out, or the slice of pizza they had, or having a few drinks with friends because those things don’t coincide with their fitness goals. It can become an obsession because everything you do affects your overall fitness and in some ways the more time you spend on it the more the small things will affect you. That six-pack is hard to get but easy to lose, a high level of endurance isn’t maintained unless you constantly use it, and those sugar cravings you fought so hard to get past come back awful quickly after a few weeks of not watching what you eat. Everyone has something they spend too much time on, and something they build a lot of their identity on. For some people, they work too much, some people spend too much time working out or worried about what they eat, and some people might spend years and years getting advanced degrees (coughneurosciencecough ~)... there’s nothing wrong with any of those as long as you balance them with other parts of your life and the overall picture makes you happy. Sacrifice too much for any of them and things fall out of balance. I guess the other part that wasn’t addressed directly is that some of the girls might not be meeting all their nutritional needs with the goal of hitting some target weight or with the hopes of improving their appearance. The first part of any fitness goal should be to be healthy. If they’re making unhealthy choices of course that’s too far in any pursuit. Sometimes only experience will tell you which side of the line something’s on, is it dedication or and unhealthy practice? Sometimes it takes someone to wake them up. If you’re worried about someone, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking them what their diet/exercise/fitness goals are. If the goals are healthy, people are usually open to discussing them. If they get all shifty, maybe it’s time to ask harder questions, assuming you’re the right person and they trust you.