disordered eating is a male problem too

though it took years to realize it, wood was struggling with orthorexia , a condition where a person’s focus on “healthy eating” becomes obsessive and debilitating.

the hidden struggle of male disordered eating
it’s something ary maharaj, outreach and education coordinator for the national eating disorder information centre (nedic), sees often in the outreach work that brings him to toronto-area schools. when he asks boys if they diet, they’ll always say no, he says.

he believes the number of men with eating disorders are much higher than the documented rates. “when we look at the research in the dsm-5 (the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental health professionals in the united states) around 20 per cent of people living with an eating disorder identify as boys and men,” says maharaj. “but as soon as  you take away the diagnosis, when we talk about disordered eating more generally, those numbers really start to even out across genders.”

about one million canadians have been diagnosed with eating disorders, according to the national initiative for eating disorders (nied) — but as maharaj points out, many cases go undiagnosed. nied also reports that eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.

“we know that eating disorders have a strong link to trauma,” claire mysko, ceo of the american group national eating disorders association (neda), told npr . “many people with eating disorders have past experiences with trauma, and this [pandemic era] is a collective trauma.” she added that between march and september 2020, calls to neda’s helpline were up by nearly 80 per cent.

orthorexia can show up differently in men 
terms like “optimization” or “biohacking” are more likely  the words to come up in discussions around the restrictive food behaviours favoured by men. that’s how twitter ceo jack dorsey described his practice of eating one meal a day and skipping food entirely on the weekends.

“the first time i did it, like day three, i felt like i was hallucinating. it was a weird state to be in,” dorsey said on a podcast in 2019. “but as i did it the next two times, it just became so apparent to me how much of our days are centred around meals and how — the experience i had was when i was fasting for much longer, how time really slowed down.”

and while the focus for women tends to be on becoming as thin as possible, unrealistic body ideals for men often have a lot to do with large, defined muscles. just take a look at the way the media depicts men’s bodies — images that are getting less and less attainable for the average guy.

bobby holland hanton, the stunt double for chris hemsworth’s titular character in “thor,” told muscle and fitness that he worked out for 90 minutes twice a day to get and maintain that enormous, hulking torso. his diet was equally strict. he ate small amounts of lean protein every two hours: “no sugar, no salt, nothing was grilled in sauces.” he also commented on how difficult the diet was to maintain. 

and then there are the financial costs of building a body. when actor and comedian kumail nanjiani posted a photo on instagram of his physical transformation after being cast in a marvel movie, he made explicit reference to how long, time-consuming and expensive those changes were.

but bulking up isn’t the only route men take to change their bodies — sometimes it’s just about losing weight. in a look-obsessed society, where weight loss is praised so relentlessly that even north korean dictator kim jong-un was celebrated for losing an estimated 20 pounds, it can be easy for something that starts healthily enough to gradually become obsessive. even the definition of wood’s condition, orthorexia — “an unhealthy focus on eating in a healthy way” — depicts how an intense focus on “health” can get distorted.

wood began developing more anxiety about food, and would exercise more if he ate something unhealthy — eating stopped being a pleasurable or a social experience.  “it was more about restriction and punishment,” he says. “there was a lot of shame and guilt around food.”

the stress of social eating
and then there was the stress that eating with other people brought with it.  “i didn’t want to be tempted by the bad foods,” he says. “i didn’t want to look like a failure in front of them for eating, or feel bad about myself if i broke my food rules.”

one night he went out to dinner for a friend’s birthday, and the only food on the menu that felt healthy enough for him was a vegetable dish. but when it arrived, the vegetables were coated in parmesan. “i freaked out, because at that point, parmesan cheese was off limits for me,” he says. “i went to the bathroom, i tried to pull myself together. but i left the party early.” he went to bed hungry that night.

the pain of asking for help as a man
disordered eating can be hard for anyone to talk about, but maharaj says many men find the descriptor humiliating. “i think there’s extra shame for men with eating disorders, maybe around having a quote-unquote girl’s [disease],” he says. “both say a lot about patriarchy, and the way that we see girls’ issues as being not as serious.”

“men typically don’t seek support for issues around health in general,” paul gallant, a vancouver-based independent consultant who’s run men’s health groups through his company gallant healthworks and associates, told cbc news in 2018 . “but especially health when it comes to issues of self-esteem, mental health and body image issues.”

when his nutritionist created a meal plan that included bread, wood was terrified. he started by eating tiny amounts of whole-grain wheat bread, and now he says he can go into a bakery and pick up any loaf he wants. and while he still has setbacks — wood once left brunch when he saw the calorie counts listed on the restaurant’s menu — he knows that slowly, he’s getting healthier.