Eating Disorders Affect Men’s Health Too

Eating disorders are not something experienced only by teen aged girls: anyone can struggle to cope with an eating disorder, including men.  An estimated 10% of eating disordered people are men, although that estimate is likely to be artificially low due to the negative connotations for men with eating disorders.  These conditions have even less to do with a person’s sexuality than they have to do with food, but often men with eating disorders are suspected and accused of being homosexual and weak, too feminine and too concerned about appearances: shallow and sensitive.  In addition to under reporting, men rarely seek treatment or help for these disorders until their health has been affected and they meet the criteria for a diagnosis of Anorexia Nervosa or Bulimia Nervosa.

 An article on Caring Online about Males and Eating Disorders, included this excerpt.

Another expert who treats eating disorders says society has a tendency to glamorize eating disorders while at the same time making fun of the people who have them.

“The media and society believe it’s all about these beautiful models trying to lose weight, when that’s really not what eating disorders are about,” says Mae Sokol, MD. “They’re less about food and eating and much more about people’s sense of self-esteem and identity and who they are.”

Sokol says anorexia may be less noticeable in men than women because men can still have muscle mass even though they are thin.

“In fact, it’s more dangerous for men to develop anorexia nervosa than for females … because when males get down to the lowest weight ranges, they’ve lost more muscle and tissue, whereas [fat] is something you can lose for a period of time without repercussions,” says Sokol, a child and adolescent psychologist at Menninger, a psychiatric hospital in Topeka, Kan.

I visited MensHealth.com website and searched with the keywords “eating disorders,” and was unable to find a single article about men and EDs, and I could not count how many articles were about food, fitness, weight loss, and even how to “Think Your Way to Thin” (a great read, by the way).  Clearly the pressure on men to be thin and fit is just as intense, if not more intense than the pressures women also face every day.  Unfortunately there isn’t an equal amount of information, education, awareness, and treatment programs designed for treating men who struggle with eating disorders.

During Eating Disorder Awareness Week, February 21 to 27, please tell others about the widespread eating disorder epidemic and the damage done to so many lives of men, women, and children around the world.  Talk about the common misconceptions and stereotypes, and inform people of the fact that eating disorders include more than just anorexia and bulimia, and they affect more people than just young girls and immature women or fashion models.

Triggers in the Inbox

Sometimes I’m able to clearly see many reasons why eating disorders are so widespread and impact the lives of so many young people, men, women and families that struggle to cope with the pressures they create.  Every day when I open my email inbox, I’m met with countless unwanted spam messages about weight loss, new fad diets and exercise plans, so-called miracle weight loss pills or potions, and advertisements for the most beautiful, sexy clothing and swimsuits for thin bodies.  Today I was promised “six pack” abs, weight loss recommendations based on my height and weight, a quiz to test how “calorie conscious” I am, and free coupons for sales on health food supplements guaranteed to make me lose weight.

Pro-ana and Pro-ED websites are definitely not to blame for the rise in numbers of people seeking treatment for, or trying to live with an eating disorder.  Although the fashion industry is part of the ED epidemic, I believe the true culprits are in the food industry and the weight loss business.  These two industries conspire together to make people obese with unhealthy foods and chemical additives that break down their body’s defenses, and then offer to sell miracle solutions for these weight problems.  The weight issues and negative stereotypes are propagated by the media and the entertainment business, which is truly just a reflection of what the majority of people want, idolize, or fear the most.

Without a fashion industry walking skeletal beauties down the runways, there would be a lot less thinspiration.  Without actresses, musicians, athletes and all other types of performers and public figures struggling with their weight; training their bodies and minds constantly, there would be so much less encouragement and inspiration for the average girl or woman to be a size zero babe.  Above all else, we would not struggle with weight and an unhealthy body image if the food industry and media did not set us up from birth to go through it.

Eating disorders and the pro-ana movement are some peoples’ answer to the mounting pressures of today’s society that tell us you must be thin, attractive, talented and/or tremendously smart in order to succeed.  I am not the only woman living with an eating disorder and receiving countless spam email messages–triggers in the inbox–every single day.  These endless messages go much further to program my subconscious mind than any pro-ana slogans, such as “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” 

The abolition of eating disorders will not come by banning pro-ana websites and discussion forums on the internet, or censoring thinspiration collections and photo albums on xanga and photobucket.  It can only come through the majority of people rising up against the old ways of advertising, and fighting back against the health risks in our food supply.  We need to change the majority view to accept and embrace the beauty of all life, so we can be free of judging one another and being judged, based on superficial characteristics we possess or struggle to achieve.

Eating Disorder Awareness Week Coming Soon

As the Eating Disorder Awareness Week approaches, we’re going to see a lot more articles in the media like the story of a Canadian man who is campaigning to raise awareness of EDs as well as reverse the stigma associated with them.  The article was posted on one of Canada’s most respected leading news websites, the CBC News, and states,

Events will be held in high schools and shopping malls across Newfoundland and Labrador the week of Feb. 1 to raise awareness of eating disorders.

“Having gone through this personally, I would suggest to families that they be very aware to changes in personality of their adolescents,” said Vince Withers, who chairs the Newfoundland and Labrador Eating Disorder Foundation. “People with and eating disorder will have noticeable changes in terms of mood, self esteem, school, in terms of having their friends around them.”

Withers founded the Eating Disorders Foundation after the death of his daughter Renata in 2006.

He hopes events this week will reverse the stigma attached to potentially fatal eating disorders.

I read that the Eating Disorder Awareness Week is actually from February 21 to 27 this year, although the other campaign in eastern Canada that’s happening now will add to the positive attention focused on these life threatening conditions.  I support any and all campaigns to raise awareness and stop the suffering that eating disorders can cause!  It is my sincere wish that all people who are living with eating disorders today will be able to recover completely or develop a healthier balance with their ED so that they no longer suffer from the pain, depression, anxiety, isolation, shame, judgements, misunderstandings, stigma and stereotypes that often go hand in hand with them.

EDNOS To Be Redefined in DSM 5

EDNOS means Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, and is the diagnosis when a patient has an eating disorder but does not meet the specific diagnostic criteria for either anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa.  As such, EDNOS is the most common eating disorder, but the diagnosis is so vague it isn’t helping clinicians and certainly doesn’t help patients get treatment services when they have the best chance at success.  Many people who are diagnosed with EDNOS feel a kind of shame that they were not “good enough” to be diagnosed with a “real disorder.”  I hear this all the time on the ED websites I frequent online.  I have also noticed that a lot of people who should be diagnosed as EDNOS are in complete denial about having an eating disorder because they know they are not anorexic or bulimic, and they haven’t even heard of EDNOS–eating disorder campaigns and stories in the media almost always focus on anorexia and bulimia.

Some people who are diagnosed with EDNOS restrict calories severely, fast, and even starve themselves like an anorexic person does, but their BMI is currently above 17.4 so they cannot be diagnosed as anorexic.  People who binge and purge once a week, starve the rest of the time, but have a BMI of 17.5 or higher are neither bulimic nor anorexic, but their disorder is every bit as dangerous and life threatening as bulimia and anorexia!

According to a recent New York Times article, “Narrowing an Eating Disorder,” the updated diagnostic manual for psychiatrists and clinicians will redefine EDNOS.  The following is an excerpt from the article,

Though its name is less familiar, it is diagnosed more often than those two disorders — in 4 percent of American women each year, according to the National Eating Disorders Association. (The association does not have statistics on men.) Subsets of Ednos include binge eating disorder, purging disorder, night eating syndrome, chewing and spitting out food, and even picky eating.

But the diagnosis baffles many clinicians, who call it ambiguous, vague and unwieldy. And so the American Psychiatric Association is overhauling its definition of Ednos for the next edition of the diagnostic manual, known as D.S.M.-5, to be published in 2013.

“The consensus is that Ednos is ‘too big,’ meaning it is being used more frequently than is desirable, as that label does not convey much specific information,” said Dr. B. Timothy Walsh, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia who is chairman of the eating disorders work group for the new manual.

I hope the clarification of EDNOS and possibly defining disorders such as Compulsive Over Eating, Binge Eating Disorder and Purging Disorder, will lead to improved treatment options and services for patients.  Under the current system, patients are rarely able to access treatment for their eating disorder until they are already in a critical state and their lives are at risk.  If patients could access treatment services before their BMI is dangerously low or their organs begin to fail, they would have a far better chance of making a full recovery.  Early intervention is the key to successfully recovering from an eating disorder in most cases, so it just makes sense to clarify the disorders people commonly experience and provide options for their treatment regardless of their weight.

Eating Disorders Are Deadly

The recent death of a thin, young actress, Brittany Murphy (Across The Hall; Sin City; Girl, Interrupted), and speculation about what caused her death has drawn more attention to the dangers of eating disorders.  The 32 year old actress has been thin for many years, and was known to struggle with her weight.  Dr. Dustin Ballard wrote earlier this month, “Murphy was skinny, one look at the tabloid photos makes that clear, but was she anorexic?  The results of her autopsy are pending but, realistically, we may never have a definitive answer to that question.”  We may never know if Brittany Murphy had anorexia nervosa, but if her BMI at death was higher than 17.4 then we can know she definitely was not anorexic at the time of her death.  That doesn’t mean she wasn’t living with another eating disorder though.

She always denied having an eating disorder, but due to the reports and rumours about her conduct on set and her lifestyle (“too many drugs and too little food”) lead me to believe she most likely did live with an eating disorder for many years.  I believe it played a role in her premature death from cardiac arrest, although she also had a genetic heart murmur and used drugs.  Most likely a combination of these factors caused her death, but it certainly highlights the deadly dangers of eating disorders.

Anorexia is the deadliest mental illness, with a death rate of approximately 20%.  You don’t have to be super skinny to die from an eating disorder though.  Someone suffering with ED-NOS may have a healthy body weight but a severely damaged liver from purging, a weak and shrunken heart from restricting, a deadly electrolyte imbalance, damaged kidneys, etc, even though they may appear healthy to the casual observer.  Most anorexics actually die from suicide rather than starvation, and depression is a common and serious complication with all eating disorders.  All persons with eating disorders are at very high risk.

Dr. Dustin Ballard closed his article about the dangers of anorexia and the death of the 32 year old actress, “So, if indeed Brittany Murphy suffered from anorexia, she likely had suffered for years and reached an age at which successful intervention would have been very tricky. Take a moment to consider that and whether there is someone you can help now – before it is too late.”  I can’t help but pause at that statement and really think about my own life, because I’m two years older than Brittany Murphy was… does that mean it’s too late for me?  It very likely could, as I am resistant to recovery and terrified of gaining weight.