Did You Know Men Battle Eating Disorders Too?
That may sound like a silly question if you think logically, but we’re betting some men don’t think that it’s a disease that plagues their population.
When people think about eating disorders, they think females trying to get thin by binging and purging food, or starving themselves, but in the male world, eating disorders more so form in the way of Muscle Dysmorphia.
Men’s Health shares the notion: “From a young age, men are taught to be bigger, stronger, and faster, and to fight through pain.”
For many men, they chase the ideal body, similar to the way females do, but in the way of working out, eating little or using certain drugs to obtain the right energy to be able to complete their workouts, or stress over the fact that the “fat guy plays the fool” in many films.
Now before you say “Yeah? Well, Men’s Health magazine covers are all about being fit.” They do note themselves that this is the ideology that is pushed.
“When we see images of muscular bodies, which we are bombarded with, we become less satisfied with our own,” says Stuart Murray, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at UC San Francisco, quoted by MH. “The established norm is unrealistic in a lot of ways. A lot of the idealized images we see are Photoshopped and by definition impossible to replicate. And models often do extreme dieting for a photo shoot.”
Noting that things like steroids and drugs can wreck your body for life, including your body no longer being able to produce testosterone, it’s a gamble for simple vanity.
So if you find yourself obsessing over your body image, whether it’s to lose weight or to gain muscle, remember to do it the healthy route. Eat right, get a trainer or hit the gym, and leave the performance-enhancing drugs alone.
