The research on eating disorders has concentrated mainly on girls and women.
In fact, the epidemiological data that we have available indicate a lower prevalence in children and men. Consequently, many studies do not include a male champion, which has led to a limited understanding of the impact on public health of the Food disorders in males.
This has also strengthened the stereotype according to which eating disorders are only a “female problem”.
In the last decade, the interest in the male body image has grown by contributing to the increase in the number of research aimed at understanding its main components, its socio -cultural, psychological and behavioral correlations.
Many studies have tried to analyze if there were demographic groups associated with greater risk, such as vulnerability factors and finally the main obstacles to the treatment of eating disorders in males.
Social groups at risk of developing eating disorders
The main male demographic groups to which a greater risk of eating disorders seems to be associated:
- Sexual and gender minorities: A recent study (Nagata et al. 2020) highlights how men belonging to sexual minorities (gay, bisexual, pansexual …) and belonging to gender minorities such as transgender, have more likely to have eating disorders than heterosexuals. Research suggests that this increase in risk can derive from chronic exposure to stress factors such as prejudice, discrimination and internalized homophobia.
- Athletes: Guys and men who practice sports sensitive to weight (for example wrestlers, boxers, jockeys, rowers) and aesthetic sports (for example artistic skaters, gymnasts, bodybuilders) run a greater risk of developing eating disorders (Karrer et al. 2020). For some sports, in fact, to return to a specific weight class, can lead to advantages and therefore push athletes to dysfunctional food behaviors to quickly switch to a lower weight.
Vulnerability factors
Other research focused on trying to highlight the vulnerability factors that influence the increase in the risk of developing eating disorders in males such as genetics and comorbilities with other psychiatric disorders. Some studies have detected an association between eating disorders in males and mood disorders, panic disorder and social anxiety disorder.
Tylka’s “quadripartite” model (2011) is one of the socio -cultural models born from the subsequent improvement of Thompson’s tripartite influence model. This model theorizes that pressures from multiple social influences They can cause the internalization of an ideal of the Mesomorph male body (characterized by a visible musculature associated with low body fat levels) which leads to two possible path trajectories:
- Dissatisfaction with one’s muscularity that predicts the behaviors aimed at increasing muscle mass;
- Dissatisfaction with body fat that significantly predicts eating disorders.
The Tylka model
There are four social influences theorized by Tylka:
- Average: The use of social media such as Instagram, YouTube …, exposes children and men to strong external pressures to conform to a thin and muscular body. The 2015 Tylka search also connected the use of pornography in young people to the increase in the extinguishing of body fat through the internalization of the Mesomorphic ideal.
- Parents: Families who regularly exhibit boys and men in media images of Mesomorphic male bodies strengthen the internalization of this ideal that from research seems to play a role of central mediator in the relationship between family pressure to a lean and muscular body and dissatisfaction of musculosity and dissatisfaction with fat.
- Friends: Perceiving the pressure of peers towards a mesomorphic body seems to be directly associated with the increase in the extinguishing of one’s muscularity.
- Partner: The potential pressures of the partner towards a mesomorphic body have not been included in the original tripartite model, but Tylka has discovered that this influence is the only one to have a direct association with eating disorders. This association does not seem to be mediated by other variables as happens for the other social influences examined by the model.
Representation of the Tylka model (2011)
Obstacles to the treatment of eating disorders in males
Stigma, internalized shame, fear of judgment and refusal, preconceptions about eating disorders such as a “problem of women” and delays in recognition of symptoms, are the main factors that prevent early taking care.
The options of treatment of eating disorders They are largely centered on women and often even health workers can delay in recognizing and diagnosing.
In addition to increasing studies on eating disorders and empirically validating specifically developed treatments for men, it would be important to break down all the social and structural barriers that also prevent the early recognition of this pathology.
