management kristan: The secret world of male eating disorders

We usually associate anorexia with skeletal girls ? not guys working out maniacally. But eating disorders are characterised by sufferers having an unhealthy attitude to food and exercise and an obsessive preoccupation with their appearance.

Despite a startling lack of information on eating disorders in men, health and fitness expert Ronald Abvajee, who?s the owner and head trainer at www. mypersonaltrainer.co.za, believes it?s more common than current research would have us believe.

?Men have the same issues around their bodies that women do. They feel the same pressure to fit into skinny jeans or bulk up. In my work, I?ve seen men suffering from disorders ranging from bigorexia and exerexia to anorexia and bulimia,? he says.?

Linde Viviers, a clinical psychologist at the Crescent Clinic in Johannesburg, believes eating disorders are generally underreported in both sexes. Like alcoholism and other process addictions, sufferers often don?t believe they have a problem. According to Viviers, the eating disorder behaviour is functional for them and they resist giving it up. It?s usually their family who gets them into treatment and because the condition?s associated with young females, male sufferers tend to be even more in denial.

Anorexia can range from eating tiny portions or just one meal a day to starving for days at a time. It also has the highest mortality rate of any psychological disorder.

Jan Balt (26) developed anorexia in his late teens before moving to bulimia.

?It started when I was 19. My life was in upheaval and I became very depressed and just stopped eating. I went from a fit and active sportsman to someone who barely had the energy to lift himself out of the bathtub,? he says, ?I had to learn to eat again because I literally couldn?t hold food down.?

Like most male sufferers, he didn?t seek help because of the shame associated with the disorder. It took years for him to recover and for months he veered from one extreme (eating nothing) to the other (eating nothing but pizza two or three times a day).

Bigorexia or muscle dysmorphia is considered to be the inverse of anorexia. While anorexics pursue the goal of being ?smaller and thinner?, bigorexics have a goal of becoming bigger. Men will work out and eat excessively in the constant pursuit of building muscle. The disorder eventually escalates to the use of steroids and excessive supplements.

?This condition is more common in my line of work. Men never admit to using steroids because they know it?s a taboo, but as a coach or trainer, you begin to figure out there?s a problem when they constantly ask whether a particular exercise or training regimen will ?make them bigger?, or when everyone?s taking a break and they keep working out,? says Abvajee.

Exerexia or exercise dysmorphia is a condition which drives sufferers to exercise maniacally, damaging their bodies from obsessive workouts.

?What makes this disorder dangerous is that sufferers use up the energy required for normal metabolic processes on exercise,? says registered dietician? TV Makaleng.

According to Viviers, excessive exercise ?and preoccupation with ?body size and shape are symptomatic of an eating disorder, but exercise is ?often viewed as a more acceptable compensating behaviour for men than self-imposed starvation.

Binge eating is a disorder Makaleng finds particularly disturbing. It?s characterised by eating gargantuan amounts of food (usually in secret, and even when not hungry).

?The problem is ?that men don?t realise binge eating is an eating disorder. They assume it?s normal to consume more food than they need,? he says.

Overeating? has shown up most obviously in SA?s skyrocketing obesity levels. Society in general regards a big appetite in men as desirable, which gives rise to the notion that overeating is acceptable.

An article published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders points out that binge eating is common in both genders, but that men are routinely excluded from studies on the subject. According to the article, it was found from a sampling of 21 743 men and 24 608 women that 7,5% of the men reported binge eating in the preceding month, compared with 11,19% of women.?

Bulimia involves a punishing cycle of binge eating, followed by self-induced vomiting.

?When I left school in 2005, I weighed 78kg, but by 2010 I weighed in at 100kg, which was the heaviest I?d ever been. I was always quite active, cycling and going to gym and after I left school,? I did bodybuilding for five or six years. When I stopped bodybuilding, everything turned to fat,? recalls Oliver dos Ramos (34).

He admits to always having issues with his weight. ?I?d be too scared to eat and then pig out and throw up. It started in about 2000, around the time I stopped bodybuilding, but I kept it a secret because I knew it was wrong.?

After ?he married, he felt the pressure to maintain a certain appearance ease a little and he?s managed to keep his weight constant for the last two years. He?s even started helping others through his Herbal Shake website.

Like most addictions,? eating disorders take many years of intensive work to ?deal with. Balt, Dos Ramos and the experts agree that it isn?t a journey that should be undertaken alone.

?It took me years to start healing and learn to be kinder to myself by eating healthily, because I had no support and refused to ask for help,? says Balt.

Useful contacts

* ?Crescent Clinic, tel: 011 792 9400 or 021 762 7666.

* Oliver dos Ramos, tel: 011 524 0891 or 083 414 3588, or visit: www.herbalshake.co.za
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Article source: http://www.destinyman.com/article/the-secret-world-of-male-eating-disorders-manorexia-2012-09-13