In this press release, a new website Men Get Eating Disorders Too has launched. This is the first website known to be exclusively devoted to men with eating disorders, including anorexia, bulimia, compulsive overeating, binge eating disorder, compulsive overexercising, and "bigorexia."
The website is similar to something-fishy with general information, news, treatment, and message boards. It's not as extensive but it is in its early stages, so I'm sure more information will be added in the future.
I think this could be very helpful for this population since there has been a rise in eating disorders in recent years, according to a Harvard study in 2007. Many men feel isolated both in general with their eating disorder as well as in a treatment center which is normally filled with women. It's important that they have a place to reach out and have support, so hopefully this website will fill part of that void.
Note--*Interesting study of male Finnish twins and the incidence of eating disorders
5 comments:
Whoa, how great! Although the MGET acronym is just a little unfortunate. It looks like a great site.
Funny - I just did a YT vid on men & ed's. I will have to look at this study you linked.
There is another site that deals with this subject:
www.mengeteds.com
I think that it is great that awareness is being brought about male eating disorders. Believe it or not, eating disorders amongst men are very real yet not discussed as much as female eating disorders. Particularly amongst men who are in sports like wrestling, eating disorders can be very prominent. For example, when I was in high school I had a guy friend who was in wrestling and talked about how he wouldn't eat for a long time before weigh-ins or would sit in the sauna for prolonged periods of time with his friends to sweat off the weight. He lost an unhealthy amount of weight as an athlete and was terrified that he would overeat.
There is an essentialist-type of thinking in our society that thinks that all men are too "man enough" to have eating and exercise problems. However, men feel a significant amount of pressure from the media images as well. Images of famous celebrities and athletes (David Beckman, anyone?) with ideal bodies and the ideal lifestyle and an impressive career give off an unrealistic standard that men can try to obtain. In addition, they are discouraged from sharing their feelings and doubts about these problems because it is too "girly". However, this hegemonic system can be just as detrimental for men as women.
I am glad to hear that there is an increased interest in male bodies and health. They should not be overlooked.
Glad people are taking an interest in this website.
Curiousstudent, EDs a re definitely problems among men. It's nice to finally see it being recognized more. I've seen and read about a number of male athletes falling into EDs. It's still secretive but hopefully as more knowledge and less stigma occur, men will continue to reach out.
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