Eating Disorders Rise Among Boys As They Struggle With New Male Beauty Standards

Probably because their pink haired parents are vegans and think they can get muscles from bean curds all day.

R1 is a triggered Boomer.

Most of these examples written by ignorant journalists are not eating disorders but more like disordered eating. A lot more people have disordered eating as opposed to actual eating disorders. Eating disorders range from serious to life threatening, and have less to do with body image than underlying depression and OCD need for control. Recent studies have shown a genetic disposition to serious eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa. So for all the ignorant shit spewed by media that is is about food/ body image, and people saying mean shit like “go eat a sandwich”, it’s just that, fucking ignorant and cruel.

Speaking of disordered eating and more people having some form of it, it’s actually not restricted eating but overeating that is the problem. How many people binge eat or pig out more often than they’d admit? Why aren’t fat activists and concern trolls highlighting this fact? It’s obesity not being underweight that is overwhelming our healthcare system.

I had a male patient, a high school former football player, who was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. He also had other psychiatric diagnoses besides that, which is typical of people with AN. The boy was tall, handsome, but very thin. You’d look at photos of him when he played football a year or two ago and think, why would a healthy and good-looking boy do this to himself. But again, it wasn’t all about weight, it was about much more than wanting to look fit or beautiful.

Judging from her verbal diarrhea, R3 is pretty much suffering from serious OCD herself as well.

[QUOTE]How many people binge eat or pig out more often than they’d admit? Why aren’t fat activists and concern trolls highlighting this fact? It’s obesity not being underweight that is overwhelming our healthcare system.

Are you serious? This overwhelmingly dominates the discussion of body weight in America.

I have seen this in my stepsons and my friends' boys. Several of them have gotten really skinny and they barely eat.

Blame Instagram and its filters

R4 are you a fat frau or just a concern troll? Likely both. Now fuck off to mumsnet or whatever the fuck you fat fraus go to spew ignorant shit about eating disorders.

I'm quite old (mid 40s) by DL standards and female (sorry). I was hospitalized for anorexia in the late 1990s and there was one young man on the eating disorders ward (besides around 10 women). I still remember what he shared in group one day, which was that he "just didn't feel like he was worth sustaining."

That really haunted me--he really captured the ED mindset with that simple phrase, and I hadn't even realized that young men had eating disorders. I knew about wrestlers and other athletes starving and trying all kinds of dangerous gimmicks to make their weight class, but didn't realize that they could have the psychological thing going on, too.

He was discharged before me, so our time there overlapped only very briefly. I don't know whatever became of him, but I hope if he had some other identity issue (like sexuality or gender) that he has found total acceptance, love and peace, and I hope he's still alive, and secure in the knowledge that he has always been completely worth sustaining.

Eating disorders in general are on the rise during COVID-19. Sad that young men are now being affected in higher rates; it still affects women more, in general at this time.

trying to be david laid..........look him up on web.............

R3 and R8 since your talking about one of your patient, are you a doctor, a nurse? or a bogus naturopath/nutritionist?

R9 AN is often diagnosed along with other mental illnesses. What you described of the male patient snd him expressing feelings of wanting to disappear, that is very typical of serious cases of AN.

AN can be described as a slow form of suicide, and in mental health many providers choose to not accept patients with severe, chronic, or refractory AN because of the high mortality rate associated with it. It’s wrong that journalists keep perpetuating the notion of AN being about weight and image.

R12 I’m a FNP as well as DNP in psych, the title is a fucking long (PMHNP) so I tell people I’m a psych DNP. Work for private practice as well as public clinic and teaching hospital. I see a wide cross section of patients, from upper middle class with insurance to the indigent.

My cunt of a cousin on my mother’s side had a schizo anorexic breakdown when he was in his mid-late teens.

It was extreme, complete with cutting and screaming head-through-wall histrionics. He starved himself to the point of literal emaciation, like Darfur orphan style. There was also a lot of foul abuse shouted and BPD fits of breaking shit and suicidal tendencies.

Because his equally cunty rich emigré parents couldn’t cope with caring for him and getting him treatment, he was shipped off to stay with me and my mother (his aunt) and our grandmother while also staying intermittently in hospital and the Priory. During that period of time I was trying to apply for College and move out, as well as recover from my own depression, and unfortunately this coincidence has had a seemingly-indelible negative effect on moving past that. His insanity took up all our time and focus.

After a year of struggling, one day he suddenly woke up totally fine, and we found him at the dinner table placidly eating breakfast and doing a crossword, slashes bandaged wrists and all, greeting us like nothing had happened.

He moved back home then went to University for some bullshit media degree, and now of all things he works for an internship wage writing as a food blogger/restaurant reporter. He’s even got a cute little girlfriend and a nice apartment for which Mommy & Daddy paid. Kinda wish he’d finished the job, sometimes.

To be honest achieving this new standard for male beauty hasn’t been much of a struggle for me.

Teens admit taking 100s of selfies a day to get the right one, that's on top of photoshopping. This is very different than typical body issues -- it's a self made problem from excessive online use.

I know people here are bringing up psychology of ED, but I disagree with that being at the root of it with teens. Really think about taking 200 pictures a day of yourself, spending hours photoshopping, or making internet videos 🙄 our friend's kid is already into the addiction at 7 years old.

There's a huge rise in body dysphoria over sex, risimg requests in plastic surgery in general (they are actually requesting to look like their online photoshopped image), and endless use of social media. Doubtful today's eating disorders look like the ones from 20 years ago, because they are stemming from the same source that triggered it.

**they are NOT stemming from the same source 20 years ago**

Who needs an eating disorder when you have 10 inches?

Well if you don’t have 10 inches, R19, as is the case with the vast majority of teenage boys, then it’s all the more reason to potentially develop an eating disorder. Because in America if you don’t have a 10 inch dick, or a rated 10 face, or a 10 personality, or a V10 BMW from your parents, then you better have something else going for you like a body that draws respect from your peers. Otherwise you’re invisible.

[quote]I'm quite old (mid 40s) by DL standards

By DL standards you're a blastocyst.

R14 fantastic, I have a question for a professional, do you often see a link between the new fad/trends veganism, "milk only for baby", fake food allergies etc... with people with eating disorder? Is there any research about it, I would like to make a point with some of my friends...

R19, we're talking about eating disorders, not gag reflex.

In other words, R14, you’re a nurse, not a doctor.

R24 that's probably the cuntiest remark I've ever read on DL. And I DON'T mean that as a compliment.

Just telling it like it is, R25. If you’re going to rant about all the ignoramuses who don’t know as much as you do about eating disorders, and then you try to hide behind a bunch of acronyms to mask your true level of medical expertise...well, then, get ready to get a bit of pointless bitchery aimed your way!

Veganism = socially acceptable eating disorder, correct?

Or any "diet" that has so many rules to follow that you effectively rule out eating all food.

R24 I'd rather have the opinion of a nurse than a yoga instructor, and God knows they can't shut up and give health advices...

I'm gonna change my name to Cougar Carpenter!

[quote]Veganism = socially acceptable

Not around here it ain't. Our anti-vegan trolls are almost as bad as the vegans.

EDNOS is considered a response to feelings of lack of autonomy or control, right?

Tom Felton (the actor who played Draco Malfoy in the HARRY POTTER films) was recently in a movie about it (FEED, 2017), wherein he played a ghost of a dead twin who was haunting his sister, convincing her to starve herself out of some fucked-up codependency so she can join him in the afterlife or something. It has creepy incestuous overtones, so...there’s that.

R26 I’m not R14. I’m Just an innocent bystander who thought your comment, R24 was a cheap shot.

Most boys don’t want to be skinny. They want to be swole, muscled

Or lean and ripped, R33. I think that’s a big part of what’s feeding it.

But there actually are a lot of boys who just want to be thin without much muscle. That is the look girls prefer, after all.

These young men are struggling.

"That is the look girls prefer, after all."

No, it's not. And a disproportionate # of men with eating disorders are gay

"Well if you don’t have 10 inches, R19, as is the case with the vast majority of teenage boys, then it’s all the more reason to potentially develop an eating disorder. Because in America if you don’t have a 10 inch dick, or a rated 10 face, or a 10 personality, or a V10 BMW from your parents, then you better have something else going for you like a body that draws respect from your peers. Otherwise you’re invisible."

LOL. 99.9% of men don't have don't have 10 inch dicks.

They're just skinny girls trapped in a fat boy's body.

I think it's less about "new male beauty standards" and more about mental health that is a mix of genetics and environment. The male beauty standard has more or less remained the same: tall, muscular, clear skin, full head of hair and symmetrical. I think anorexia and bulimia is more linked to OCD and perfectionism than media exposure. The influence of your family and peers will, of course, always play a bigger and more impactful role on your self-esteem than a magazine or billboard that is only suggesting an image of attractiveness.