Since the inception of the Exercise Is Medicine (EIM) collaboration between the American Medical Association and the American College of Sports Medicine in 2007, the program has gained enough international esteem to create a Global Research Center and implement satellite programs in Poland, Malaysia, Chile, and Hong Kong (exerciseismedicine.org, 2020). In a recent public lecture for the Kinesiology and Community Health Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the EIM Program Officer Mark Stoutenberg claimed that EIM has plans to develop additional satellite programs in developing countries. This announcement is of sociological interest on multiple fronts. These include but are not limited to EIM’s focus on cost effectiveness, agent-centric intervention programs, the potential for misuse of meta-analyses, and the variability in measuring and defining mental illness. Consequently, this paper aims to highlight these four concerns regarding the globalization of EIM using qualitative analysis of exercise interventions for depression as a case study.
