Blog Post #3: What do Eating disorders affect more, men or women?

 

If you have a family member or a friend who is at risk of Eating disorders, what did you notice about their age and gender? Are they adolescent, middle age, or old age? If they are young, is he/she a boy or a girl? If they are adult, is he/she man or woman? I think your answer when we talk about age is that he/she is young or adolescent, right?  And when it comes to their sex or gender, your answer is obviously a girl or a woman. This is people’s stereotype when they talk about Eating disorders. They think that this illness is a ‘women’s problem’ or a ‘female issue’. But researchers say the assumption of that eating disorders only affect woman is preventing men with such disorders from receiving the help and support they need.

Eating disorders are serious mental health conditions that can affect men and women, at any age. It is a common misconception that Eating disorders only affect women but the reality is that eating disorders affect men and women, boys and girls.  But, why are eating disorders primarily diagnosed in women over men? The obvious answer for that are many more women than men seek help from other people and they want treatment for this problem.

Why are females much more likely to suffer from eating disorders than males? It seems that Tetyana’s article Eating Disorders: Do Men and Women Differ? from the site scienceofeds.org had two arguments about it, Tetyana said, “One argument has been that because eating disorders are so rare in males, the nature of the illness must somehow be atypical in males. The second line of discussion has suggested that there must be something different about males who develop an eating disorder. For example, it has been suggested that a higher proportion of males with eating disorders might be homosexual.” Since this illness is more common in females, some males don’t think that they are having this kind of health problem. Males think that they are weak, fragile, and impotent if they are diagnosed with Eating disorders. People can also have assumptions that males who develop this illness might be gay or homosexual.

According to National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders’ Eating Disorders Statistics from their site anad.org, they had collected information from many researches and studies about the types of Eating disorders and where are they more prevalent. Some of the statistics about students are: “91% of women surveyed on a college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting; 95% of those who have eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25; Over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives.” From this information, there is a larger percentage for women than men who had attempted dieting, skipping meals, fasting, vomiting, taking laxatives and even smoke cigarettes when they are between the ages of 12 and 25.

“Women are much more likely than men to develop eating disorder. Only an estimated 5 to 15 percent of people with anorexia or bulimia are male” National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders said.

Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa are two of the three most common Eating disorders and these two disorders are different in symptoms and health conditions but they are likely to be more prevalent in women than men. I can agree with their statement that only 5-15% of people with anorexia or bulimia are male and about 80-90% are female. People with anorexia nervosa usually have distorted body image of themselves, while in bulimia nervosa, people like to eat a lot but purge the food they had eaten. It’s kind of unthinkable for men to put their fingers inside their mouths to forcefully vomit their food and also most of men don’t care if they’re fat, overweight or obese, they just like to eat as many as they can. 

In an article Belief that eating disorders ‘only affect women’ hinders treatment for men written by Honor Whiteman from the site medicalnewstoday.com, Whiteman wrote that there is a researcher named Ulla Räisänen of Oxford University in the UK who had interviewed 39 individuals between the age of 16 and 25 years, of which 10 were men. All the participants suffered from eating disorders and were asked about their experiences about their condition. The research team only focused on men’s responses. They had found out that, “Symptoms of eating disorders in the surveyed men included going for days without eating, purging, and obsessive calorie counting, exercise and weighing. However all of these men took a long time- months and even years- to realize that these behaviors could be associated with eating disorder.”

The researchers reported that one man thought that eating disorders only affected “fragile teenage girls” and another man said eating disorders were “something girls got”. Some of the men said they delayed seeking help for their condition because they thought that they would not be taken seriously by health care professionals or they were unaware of where to go for help. However, many of the men said they had visited their doctor several times before they were taken seriously. One participant said that his doctor told him that he was “going through a teenage fad”, and another one was even referred to a psychologist and was being told to “not be weak but be strong and deal with the problem”.

The research team says, “Men with eating disorders are underdiagnosed, undertreated, and under-researched.”

Although eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder are predominantly female problems, men may still experience those particular problems. Men are under-diagnosed, undertreated, and under-researched by our health care professionals and doctor because of the fact that women are more prone to eating disorders and the stereotype that it ‘only affect women’. Doctors’ patients for eating disorders are usually women and teenage girls. There are few men who try consulting doctors but they are not taken seriously, and sometimes men don’t have the courage to confess their problem because he is scared that people might call him gay or homosexual if he is known to have this kind of health issue.  

Kids, pre-adolescents, teenagers, adults, girls, boys, women, and men can be all victims of Eating disorders. Eating disorders affect all gender at any age so we should not believe in some misconceptions about this health problem. Truly, it is primarily a female problem but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is not a problem for men. Women and men have many differences when it comes to their body structures, eating habits, exercises, body images, etc. Women eat lesser than men; men are more engaged in physical activities than women but both have care for their physical appearances and want to be attractive to their opposite sex. Women prefer to have big boobs, curves, big butts or a slim but sexy body, while men want to have abs, toned and lean arms and legs with noticeable muscles. In order to achieve the bodies’ men and women want, they eat nutritious foods and do different exercises. It’s okay to do body-toning exercises such as weightlifting, yoga, Pilates, Zumba, playing sports and going to the gym, but if men and women become obsessed with their body, they might have health complications and even develop an eating disorder.