Men Get Eating Disorders Too
Which is the reason Sam Thomas developed a website on the topic…he knows, from personal experience.
A man who spent years struggling with bulimia has set up a website for men with eating disorders because he says most of the help available is aimed at women.
Sam Thomas, 23, developed the condition at school when he was bullied from the age of 13.
He told Radio 5 Live that he’d always assumed it was a woman’s problem.
“I initially sought help when I was 16. I saw an after hours doctor because I was in a completely desperate situation.
“At 18, when I got help then, I did tell my regular doctor what I was dealing with and they said to me, ‘You’re just depressed’.
“If I was a female with the exact set of situations I was going through with my bulimia then I would have probably got help for that a lot quicker.”
According to statistics, an estimated 10% of people with eating disorders are men. Men are also feeling the pressure to be thin, and receiving distorted images about what constitutes a perfect body.
“Males are taking on our unhealthy obsession with thinness and perfection, and as a result we are seeing an increased incidence in eating disorders in males” says Sondra Kronberg, MS, RD, CDN. Kronberg is the director and co-founder of Eating Disorder Associates Treatment and Referral Centers and has been treating clients with eating disorders for more than 25 years.
According to the National Eating Disorders Association, there are about 1 million men with serious eating disorders and tens of millions who have some form of eating disorders.
Why the Increase?
The number of men with eating disorders has been growing for the last 10 years. Kronberg points out that the biggest cause of eating disorders in men is the idea that they can change their bodies to be more perfect.
“From a very young age, boys are surrounded with media messages of what they should look like,” Kronberg says. “Action figures present subtle messages of unrealistic role models of well-sculpted, heavily muscled, ‘perfect’ bodies that little boys see as their role models.”
This rings true to me…despite women’s mag myths about male self-control, I’ve seen a fair number of men on the forums I mod with binge/emotional eating issues. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the incidence is higher than the stats portray, as the perception of eating disorders as a “women’s issue” may keep men from recognizing their problem for what it is and/or deter them from seeking help.
Sam Thomas’s website, “MGEDT – Men Get Eating Disorders Too” is at: http://www.mengetedstoo.co.uk/ More info on eating disorders in boys/men can be found on the National Eating Disorders Association website.
April 7, 2009
I had no idea that this was as big a problem as it seems to be. I’m glad there are things being done to help out on this problem.