What comes to mind when you think of eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia? Most would say smokey-eyed, stick-thin European models, or the girls you see on the most popular magazine covers. The thought of males and eating disorders would rarely show itself.

"It's just as hard to be Ken as it is to be Barbie."

But did you know that 10-15% of the eating disorder population that is clinically diagnosed is made up by males? Eating disorders are usually only associated with women, but they can be much more prominent in men than they appear. It’s assumed that the main reason that men are less likely to report that they have an issue with food/body image or that they prefer to not seek treatment is simply because they don’t want to admit they are facing a problem that is assumed to be only affecting women.

Males are capable of developing eating disorders just as easily as women are. In most cases, the characteristics of a male’s eating disorder is very similar to those of a woman’s eating disorder.

Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge Eating Disorder and Orthorexia are all common among males. But the most common is Bigorexia, one that goes most often unnoticed  and is easily undiagnosed as a problem or disorder.

Bigorexia is also known as Muscular Dysmorphia or reverse anorexia. The main characteristic of someone with this disorder is a faulty perception of their body size in reality. They may see themselves as having muscles that are underdeveloped, but in reality, they have an envious ‘shape’ and strong muscle definition. It’s most commonly found in bodybuilders, yet not all bodybuilders have bigorexia. Someone with bigorexia puts their body through vigorous workouts lasting hours on end and has extreme diet constraints.

"The main characteristic of someone with this disorder is a faulty perception of their body size in reality."

Symptoms of bigorexia include:

• an excessive amount of time spent lifting weights and/or preoccupation with body image, workouts, and diet
• other aspects of life (relationships, education, family, extra-curriculars) may be ignored due to their workout routine and diet restraints
• checking themselves constantly in the mirror
• use of steroids
• covering up body in order to prevent others seeing definition of muscle and body ‘shape’

Just like in women, body image plays a huge role and is often the central issue that leads to eating disorder behaviors.

While women are fixated on weight, in most cases men are fixated on building a muscular body ‘shape’ that represents what our culture views as masculine. Men aren’t as likely to attempt to lose or maintain weight by using dieting or abusing diet pills, laxatives, and diuretics. Men diet as a response to actually feeling overweight, while women diet as a response to feeling ‘fat’ despite most often times not being overweight.

Maintaining a toned and ‘shaped’ body allows men to feel more masculine and in control. The reward, they believe, is greater admiration and respect from others. Most men form their body image through comments made by peers, such as through nicknames and teasing, or early on through being submersed in an athletic or sport-focused environment.

Just imagine, a young boy that already is teased by friends or just has a low-self esteem that is normally seen throughout the high school years, gets told by a coach, ‘You could lose a little weight…’ That could have an everlasting effect on anyone’s image of themselves.

Each person’s eating disorder is unique. It can result from feelings of shame, aloneness, using many different methods of weight loss/control in the past, depression and substance abuse, sexuality, or feelings of wanting to fit some kind of cultural norm. There are also different courses of onset, from wanting to avoid teasing due to being overweight or wanting to improve sports performance, to avoiding the medical issues, like heart disease, found in one’s family.

There is a HUGE misconception in today’s world: Boys and men are naturally confident, have greater self esteem, and better body images compared to women and are therefore at less of risk for developing eating disorders. This is so far from true. Having negative or distorted body image is the central issue of eating disorders and is a symptom of underlying issues. Men and women alike need to learn new healthier, positive ways of thinking about themselves, such as to learn to accept his or her own body’s flaws and to value ones internal worth over one’s external appearance.

For more information on males and eating disorders, visit the website of The National Association for Males with Eating Disorders, Inc.

References:

• http://www.namedinc.org/ – The National Association for Males with Eating Disorders, Inc.
• Boys and Their Bodies: Recognizing Eating Disorders in Males, Tripp Underwood, January 19 2011, Children’s Hospital Boston Pediatric Health Blog

Images in magazines and on television may cause increased body dissatisfaction in adolecents.

Adolescents who read magazines and watch television contents that deal with the concept of image prove to be unhappier with their own bodies. Girls are more susceptible to experiencing a lower perception of their physical appearance. Body dissatisfaction is linked to the type of content that is consumed (diet, beauty, health or music videos) rather than the frequency of exposure.

Read more….

Barbie doesn’t look so good in real life.

If Barbie were human-size, she’d stand 6 feet tall with a 36-inch chest, an 18-inch waist, and 33-inch hips.

Galia Slayen, who once battled an eating disorder, wanted to know what a person with these dimensions would look like so she built a life-size Barbie.

Barbie’s dimensions are out of whack (Read more…)

Darryl Roberts Attacks BMI in New Documentary

What does it mean to be fat?  Do you know it when you see it?  What if the doctor told you that you are overweight or obese, and suddenly you think you are fat but didn’t know it.  Without the label, could you see the beauty in these diverse bodies:

Do you measure it?  With what–the BMI?  Here are a few quotes on the legitimacy of that measurement:

“When a standard such as BMI is used, its limitations must also be presented. In particular, equating the terms increased BMI and obese can be quite misleading, since excess body mass calculated solely from height and weight may be due only to excess fat, only to excess [lean body mass], or to any combination of the two.”
—Letter in JAMA, June 2005

“The major problem with this ‘obesity kills’ statistic is the lack of compelling evidence to substantiate it.”
—Harvard Health Policy Review, 2003

“Someone needs to say the emperor has no clothes … [the conventional wisdom on obesity] is cultural bias, not science.”
—Dr. C. Wayne Callaway, Professor of Medicine, George Washington University, 1998

“The BMI doesn’t give a precise readout. It can be horrible as an individual gauge.”
—Cleveland Clinic Foundation Chief Academic Officer and Case Western Reserve University Department of Cardiovascular Medicine Chairman Dr. Eric Topol

“Evidence that it is more dangerous to be thin than fat is either ignored or minimized in analyses that shape public policy toward weight loss … What evidence exists for an association between obesity and mortality or morbidity, is usually found not to apply to those with mild to moderate obesity.”
—Clinical Psychology Review, 1991

Here how the ‘obesity epidemic’ is tragically impacting life-expectacy:

If we keep growing, we are liable to live forever!   There are numerous books and websites that document the science behind the fact that overweight/obese are not categories that spell impending doom.  These include:

• Big Fat Lies, by Glenn Gaesser
• Health at Every Size, by Linda Bacon
• The Obesity Myth, by Paul Campos
• Junk Food Science
• Obesity Myths

If you perceive BMI as an accurate indication of your ‘fatness’, your perception is your reality.  Just know that this is a flawed measure, as are the old Metropolitan Life Insurance tables (used the weights of dead people to predict mortality), and these are our only ‘objective’ tools.  Otherwise it is all you, or someone outside of you, that decides if you are fat.

Be clear on this though: if someone outside of you is judging you, they are the ones with the problem. People who truly feel good about their own bodies are unlikely to judge, compare, or criticize others. People with positive body image are most likely to see all bodies as unique and beautiful.

So if you get to decide if you are fat, and there is no valid external measure, then what will you decide? Do you think it benefits you to feel bad about yourself?  How has that been working out so far?  Self-loathing, especially regarding our bodies, only fuels chaotic behaviors with food.  Hating yourself while eating will not make you eat less.  Understanding your relationship with food and your body are key to breaking free of the power that food has over you.  Trying harder at the same things you’ve been doing (that do not work long term) is similar to the definition of insanity.

So do you want to be ‘fat’ and ‘crazy’, or do you choose to learn to love your body and be sane?

*Quotes and chart were taken from the Obesity Myths website–thank you for your heroic work!

Post by Brittany Gowland

Just like so many of my fellow Americans, I partake in the guilty pleasure of reality TV, usually with a smile on my face, but I can’t stop myself from becoming saddened by the television shows that chronicle the weight and body image struggles of celebrities like Carnie Wilson and Kirstie Alley. Many people can relate to these women and feel relieved knowing that even when you’re famous, you can fall victim to a fad diet and experience yoyo-like weight loss and weight gain.

Carnie Wilson underwent gastric bypass surgery to “solve” her weight problem, only to have gained weight in the end, and is now struggling (in front of millions of people) to try to figure out what to do.

Kirstie Alley has been in the spotlight for years, always because of her weight. After losing 75 pounds and becoming the spokesperson for Jenny Craig, she regained that weight plus some. Recently, Kirstie Alley has vowed “to lose 100 pounds again!” which I suppose she will attempt to do with the help of a weight loss product that she is currently endorsing.

The missing element in both Wilson and Alley’s solution is that they do not address their underlying relationships with food, weight, and body image. This portrays the message to all individuals watching that they too can ignore their own food issues. Newsflash: No weight loss plan/diet/exercise regimen, etc will ever be successful without first resolving other issues.

Carla Wolper, a researcher at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York, states exactly what I’m thinking when she says, “It would be nice if there was somebody out there doing it the right way”. But then again, I guess that wouldn’t make for a very interesting TV show.

On the contrary, I commend actor and comedian Jeff Garlin who wrote about his struggles with food in his new book “My Footprint”. It is not very often that a male, especially a famous one, speaks out about his insecurities. I applaud his honestly as he discusses his compulsiveness with food and his never-ending diet plan. It is comforting to those suffering to know that anyone, regardless of gender, can face these issues that he has identified, and will hopefully overcome.

Sometimes you have to lose 10 lbs. or 200 lbs. to realize the skinny dream is nothing but a fantasy.  Much like its cousin, the rich dream, skinny doesn’t equal happiness. For those who are below a healthy weight, there are often behaviors in place that make them down-right miserable.  But that is another story.

The focus of this article is looking at the reality of weight loss.  Many people hold off on life until they ‘lose the weight’. This provides a protection, in many ways, from taking risks in life.  If you have an excuse (I’m too fat, my nose is too big, etc.), you do not have to do all the big things you wish you could do.

If only I could bottle the hope and excitement of the person who declares “I’m going on a diet!” The wistfulness is palpable as you see them drift off into the fantasy of what will be.  They will likely find Mr. Right, get their dream job, and on and on.  Oprah was brave enough to do all of the things she wanted to do despite her weight (thank goodness she didn’t put things off until she was skinny).  The sad part is, you can almost feel she is still resting true happiness on the hopes that one day her body will be different than it is.

This level of enthusiasm  for the Next Great Diet is only there for the first few tries, though.  After that it is almost a joke as you reach for more of whatever it is you will not allow yourself to eat on the diet.  At some point even just the thought of dieting leads right into a binge.

For those few people (2% of all dieters) who actually keep the weight off over time, the reality is harsh.  Often there is a hyper vigilance with food that is all consuming.  Life is not so much fun. But worse than that, all of those promises of what it would be like to be thin (the sky opening up to angels singing from the heavens) are not fulfilled.

Now you don’t have your fall back excuse for not having the life you want. Now it is all on the real you–not the facade.  It always was about the real you, but now you cannot deny it anymore.

What if you pretend your body is not going to be different.  Assume your body will be as it is today for the rest of your life. Nothing you eat (or don’t eat) and no amount of exercise will change your body.  Now, what do you want to do?  Love your body as it is (every single part) and get on with your real life.

In a recent study, researchers found a significant bias in healthcare professionals who treat overweight and obese patients.  This includes, but is not limited to, nurses, doctors, dietitians, and physical educators.  Weight-based discrimination among healthcare providers has increased 66% over the past decade.  This type of prejudice has a significant impact in the care that may be provided to the patient.

Lead author Dr Kerry O’Brien, from The University of Manchester, UK, said: “One reason for the high levels of obesity prejudice is that people only hear that obesity is due to poor diet and lack of exercise, which implies that obese people are just lazy and gluttonous, and therefore deserve criticism. But, uncontrollable factors, such as genes, the environment and neurophysiology, play an important role.

“Weight status is, to a great extent, inherited. It’s crucial that health professionals, such as nurses, doctors, dieticians and physical educators, are aware of these other influences, as well as their own potential prejudices, and don’t just blame the individual for their weight status.

“Those tasked with providing health services to obese people may become frustrated with patients when they do not lose weight following counselling and treatment, but the research shows that weight loss is extremely difficult to maintain long term. Obese people are constantly fighting their physiology and the environment. If professionals keep this in mind it may help in not stigmatising their clients.”

Researchers found that by administering a tutorial about additional factors in weight status, they could effect a 27% decrease in the bias.  The tutorial focused on causes beyond the control of the patient that contribute to weight.  When only given training regarding the influence of eating and exercise on weight, the bias increased 27%.

Obviously this fatism is not limited to those in the healthcare field.  This is a widespread issue in our culture.  People assume those who have weights outside of ‘normal’ (67% of the population) lack the will to control themselves.  This is despite the obvious success and achievement in all other areas of the individual’s life (ie. Oprah).

The assumption that the entire issue is how a person eats and moves actually contributes to increased rates of overweight/obese as well as eating disorders.  There is obviously a strong genetic factor in set point weights, and there is also the issue of disordered eating or binge eating disorder.  Advising people who struggle with these issues to simply ‘diet and exercise‘ does a tremendous disservice to them.

Moreover, the CDC has found the category of ‘overweight’ actually has the lowest mortality rate.  Only those in the morbidly obese category experience a potentially shorter life, but actually to a lesser degree as those who fall in the underweight category.  In fact, research has shown it is the losing and regaining of weight that may cause many of the medical issues such as high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.

Based on those figures, the net U.S. death toll from excess weight is 26,000 per year. By contrast, researchers found that being underweight results in 34,000 deaths per year

Think there will be a bias on being underweight?  Or maybe even a national War on Underweight?  Probably not–the bias is widespread and not subject to being swayed by logic.

I recently wrote an article for a site promoting the end of fat talk.  I’m pretty sure you know what talk I’m talking about.  Whether out loud or just inside your head, fat talk is going on for millions of people.

My two main issues with fat talk are:

1. It keeps you from dealing with what you are really feeling (it distracts your focus to something you think you can ‘control’).
2. It makes you do weird things with food in order to change your perceived source of frustration–your body.

It doesn’t really work in the way you think it will.  It largely backfires on you.  It makes you eat more to avoid your feelings.  It makes you eat more also because now you are so upset about your body (and for a second felt deprived when you thought about going on a diet–ack!).

In the article I asked people to ask themselves three questions:

1. Do you know with absolute certainty that you are fat.  (The answer is no, as there are no reliable tools to measure this–Brad Pitt measures overweight and George Clooney is shown to be obese)
2. How would you feel if you knew your weight would never be different than it is right now–no more, no less?  Til death do you part…
3. What would your life be like if the thought “I’m so fat” never crossed your mind.

Please check out the full article on the Reflections: Body Image Program, created by the Tri Delta sorority.