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A Shameful Secret: Men and Eating Disorders
Eating disorders tend to be considered “women’s disorders.” In our society, men are not allowed to show the
weakness of having mental health disorders, much less suffer from eating disorders. Since men and eating disorders
is a problem, they virtually always keep this a painful secret. According to the National Association of Anorexia
and Associated Disorders, men comprise about one million Americans who suffer from eating disorders.
When the issue of men and eating disorders comes up, and the men do see their doctors for help, physicians will
take a thorough medical history. They usually discover that the disorder began to emerge as teen-agers. An
adolescent peer group can be very emotionally harsh; “fat boys” are made fun of and isolated from others. The
social pressure to be thin is overwhelming among today’s teens.
Men and eating disorders recount both anorexic and bulimic behavior as adolescents. In addition to starving
themselves, they play sports and exercise excessively just as teen-age girls and grown women do. “Boys don’t get
fat” unenlightened pediatricians tell mothers. “He’s just got some baby fat that will go away on its own.” But it
doesn’t, and problem eating isn’t supposed to happen in men.
Do Men Have the Same Symptoms as Women?
Yes, but with one very important difference. People of either gender can develop an eating disorder, and they keep
their eating behavior secret. Men and eating disorders is a subject which sort of ties that knot of secrecy even
tighter. As adults, they are almost always morbidly obese. They don’t socialize with others, especially women. They
rarely date or get married.
They know that fat men are even less tolerated in our society than fat women. Men and eating disorders tend to
spend their time alone, either starving themselves (anorexia) or binge-eating and then purging by vomiting
(bulimia). Just as women are, men are obsessed with calorie counting and unhealthy diets to lose weight. Through
anorexic and bulimic behavior, men with eating disorders use food, or the lack of it, to cover feelings of guilt
and shame, loneliness, anger, and fear. But men aren’t supposed to feel these things! Men must be aggressive,
self-confident and desired by women.
Similar to women, men with eating disorders may have suffered physical or sexual abuse as children. They may have
been neglectfully denied food due to either poverty or because they were overweight as children. Men with eating
disorders learn at an early age that one sure-fire way of preventing sexual abuse is to make themselves as
unattractive and undesirable as they can. If they’re skin and bones or obese, they figure, their abuser will move
on to another victim.
Eating disorders, among either gender, isn’t a matter of vanity; wanting to fit into a smaller pair of jeans. In
fact, eating disorders don’t really have anything to do with food! What drives men with eating disorders is a need
to be in control of something, anything. They don’t do well expressing emotions, are perfectionists, and don’t
allow themselves to be less than perfect and have a deeply seated self-loathing. The one thing men can always
control is the amount of food they allow themselves to eat. The bathroom scale becomes their mortal enemy.
Parents, teachers, physicians and coaches must understand that men develop eating disorders as women do; they’re
just better at hiding it until cardiac arrest brings them to the attention of medical personnel, or they die from a
disorder that could have been avoided.
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