“Eating Disorders: It’s not just for girls anymore!”
While women most commonly struggle with eating disorders, an alarming number of men battle this illness every day. “Approximately 10% of eating disordered individuals coming to the attention of a mental health professional are male.” (Wolf, 1991; Fairburn & Beglin, 1990)
While women are faced with a skewed beauty standard, propagated by popular magazines and media, men are also confronted with distorted body-image ideals, for example: weight restrictions in sports, magazines promoting thinness and sculpting, or even an increasing number of plastic surgery options geared toward reshaping the male body. Whether male of female, the end result is the same: an individual caught in the self-defeating cycle of excessive dieting, starvation, poor-body image, low self-esteem, and a myriad of other destructive behaviors related to eating.
Please let us know if someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder.
Originally posted on May 11, 2010 @ 6:15 am
