With this week being National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, I want to talk about a population that often gets glossed over when we talk about this: Men.
When we think about eating disorders, we typically think about the well-off, white teenage girl with anorexia. Stick-like arms and legs, thin, obviously has starved herself to get where she is, but she's happy and oftentimes we're shown there's nothing totally wrong with her.
Sometimes we even see glamorized ideas of it, with a pack of girls like these making themselves sick in the sinks to stay skinny and talking about how good they feel. That isn't the extent of this. Eating disorders aren't just for girls.
Eating disorders don't care who you are.
They don't see gender, wealth, race, or age. They happen most often in adolescents, but that doesn't mean it's only for adolescents.
They come from feeling insufficient in your body, whether that's from a parent pinching your skin and commenting on how you're gaining weight, comments at school about how you eat too much, or having an unrealistic ideal for what you think a body should look like. The first two really only lead to anorexia and bulimia, but that third one?
For women, yes, it could still lead to those because we're shown from a young age that the ideal woman in our culture is an unrealistic kind of thin with "womanly curves."
But for men?
Think of the "ideal man" stereotype: muscular, lean, toned, six-pack, etc. That isn't realistic! Not all men can attain that kind of body naturally, just like not all women can attain the supposed "ideal woman" figure. Some people may be able to, whether it's naturally or through a healthy lifestyle, and those are the people we see. That doesn't mean that's how it works for everyone.
It isn't how it works for everyone.
Men have gotten the brunt of the damage on this one. Toxic masculinity in general is harmful to men, but when it comes to eating disorders, it's particularly bad. Studies are being conducted about the male relationship with eating disorders, and it's being found that there's more of an issue than previously believed. That is to say, studies are finding that men actually suffer from these disorders. That was never thought about before.
That is to say, people are finally figuring out that eating disorders affect more than women.
What a shock (except not really).
While men can suffer from anorexia and bulimia, it's often a type of body dysmorphia called muscle dysmorphic disorder, where a person obsesses with gaining muscle. It, just like anorexia and bulimia, isn't just for men, but that's where it's more prevalent. It can be just as harmful to the body, but there's a stigma against men seeking help for anything, let alone an eating disorder.
That needs to stop.
Men suffer from eating disorders, just like women do, and it's time for people to start recognizing that. Just like it's time for the media to stop pressing that the "ideal woman" is strangely thin and curvy (and photoshopped), it's time for the media to stop pressing that the "ideal man" is muscular and lean (and also probably Ppotoshopped).
More importantly: It's time to recognize that men can also suffer from traditionally "female" eating disorders.
