Anorexia and bulimia are on the rise among men as a new study shows one in five young men are unhappy with their body.
“One in five young men have some degree of quite extreme distress,” said Dr John Morgan, who runs the Yorkshire Center for Eating Disorders in Leeds.
While the official estimate for the number of men with an eating disorder stands at around 10-15 percent of all sufferers, the real figure is much higher.
“We know that 1 in 20 young people suffer from some degree of disordered eating and that at least 15% of them are men and yet that’s a tip of an iceberg,” he said.
“There are men who have problems with compulsive exercise and excessive bodybuilding who have an illness, but we haven’t defined them. Our definitions of illness have been focused on women, rather than men.”
Eight years after a report for the Eating Disorder Association showed that not enough help was available for men dealing with eating disorders, Dr. Morgan said matters have gotten worse.
“When the report was written there were some units that had dedicated expertise in male eating disorders. A couple of these have now closed down,” he said.
“There’s a lack of funding, a lack of interest. You’re dealing with a situation where you’re trying to develop a national service for men across the country, but the Health Service is now more focused on the local.”
At the age of 13, George was affected by anorexia. Doctors were unable to identify the problem as they tested for cancer, Aids, gluten allergies and a variety of disorders.
“I knew deep down, were completely irrelevant,” George said.
When he was admitted to a clinic, he was told he had four weeks to live.
His body had started to eat its own muscles and organs to survive.
“Everything that your healthy mind says is right, ‘You can eat this, it wont make you fat at all, in fact, it’s completely healthy, it’s what normal people do’.
“But then anorexia would jump in straight off and be like – ‘What are you doing, this is terrible. You’re driven by an evil, deceiving affliction that’s not good, it’s really wrong’.”
Dr Morgan points to images in the media of male beauty which pressure young men as much as young women to look slim.
“The ideal male body image has changed into quite an unhealthy shape,” he said.
“In the past blokes have been comfortable with beer bellies. Now, men and boys are under huge pressures to look good.”
“It’s completely unhealthy, and to achieve that sort of shape you’ve got to be either working out for hours in a gym, making yourself sick, or taking certain kinds of illegal drugs.”
Marcus O’Donovan is an actor who’s been in Holby City and the recent Narnia film, Prince Caspian.
He said getting in shape for a role and enjoying a normal life is very difficult.
“The pressure is increasing on everyone to look better and better and better,” Marcus said.
“I like to eat, it’s that simple, I love my food, and I do find that I’m quite worried. I have to watch what I eat and make sure that I train. It’s quite difficult to balance that and a really happy lifestyle.”
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