We don’t often think about males when we hear the term eating disorder. In fact, when we think about who is impacted by an eating disorder, the first image that often comes to mind is a low-weight female, possibly suffering from anorexia. And while the rates of eating disorders in women is staggering, there is another population in desperate need of our attention when it comes to awareness, prevention and treatment.
That’s why this year’s the National Eating Disorders Association Awareness Week’s theme, “It’s time to talk about it”, is so important. The annual awareness week, slated for February 26th to March 4th, was created to shine the spotlight on eating disorders and put life-saving resources into the hands of those in need. The prevalence of males with eating disorders is on the rise and it’s time we break down the barriers, erase the stigma, and start talking about the real issues males with eating disorders face.
Males and eating disorders
One in four individuals with an eating disorder is male and men engage in eating-disordered behaviors nearly as often as women. Ten million American men will suffer from a clinically significant eating disorder at some time in their life, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder (of which an equal number of males and females suffer from), or OSFED (other specified feeding or eating disorder).
The prevalence of eating disorders in males is greater than estimated because men are often too stigmatized to seek treatment for what so many people call “women’s problems.” The cultural stigma that is attached to males who struggles with body image and/or nutritional status is very real. The belief that eating disorders are a “female problem,” can be devastating to a man and negatively impact his willingness to seek help.
And rates of body dissatisfaction in males are rapidly approaching that of females. But for males, body dissatisfaction is more commonly manifested as the pursuit of a muscular, lean physique rather than a low bodyweight. Muscle dysmorphia is a recent psychiatric condition, which is most centrally characterized by an intense fear that one is insufficiently muscular, and an excessive drive to enhance the visible appearance of muscularity.
So what typically could be seen as someone who is extremely fit and consequently praised for their hard work, may actually be the making of a serious eating disorder. According to Andrew Walen, Founder and CEO of Body Image Therapy Center and the President of The National Association of Males with Eating Disorders, one of the biggest issues when it comes to treating a male with an eating disorder is we often don’t see them until much later in the disease. “With females, it is typically visibly recognizable (think anorexia) and they are the ones we see most often,” says Walen. “We don’t see males until much later than their female counterpart because they wait so long to ask for help.”
The stigma and lack of resources tops the list of reasons why males don’t seek help, but there is also another reason their disorder remains a secret: Their behaviors may be explained away or hidden altogether and they many not even realize their thoughts and behaviors point directly to an eating disorder. Men with anorexia or bulimia could easily spend hours exercising in a desperate attempt to achieve ultra low body fat percentages and lean muscle mass. Similarly, men with binge eating disorder may find themselves consuming large amounts of calories at one setting, but those episodes might be considered culturally appropriate for a male.