One in five men are “deeply unhappy” with their body image, according to a leading British expert on eating disorders.
Dr John Morgan also warned that the number of men with eating disorders is much higher than official figures suggest. “We know that 1 in 20 young people suffer from some degree of disordered eating and that at least 15% of them are men and yet that’s a tip of an iceberg,” Dr Morgan said in a documentary to be aired on British television. “There are men who have problems with compulsive exercise and excessive bodybuilding who have an illness, but we haven’t defined them. Our definitions of illness have been focused on women, rather than men.”
The media has been blamed with the rising problem of so-called manorexia. Many experts believe that there is now as much pressure on young men to look slim as there is on women.
Men ‘unhappy’ with their bodies. BBC News. September 12th 2008.