Osterhaus: Traditional image of anorexic female ignores men
Just like women who become ill, men have similar psychological or self-esteem issues that could trigger anorexia or bulimia.
By Hailey Osterhaus (Contact)
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
Anorexia.
It is a word that flashes the image of a half-naked girl weakly hunching over a body-length mirror observing her anatomy. Her spine looks as though it may poke through her skin, and her arms are sharply bent to settle her frail hands upon her hips that are no longer there. This person is sick, and this person is always a female.
But if we open our eyes just a little wider we will come to find that this person could actually be a male.
As if anorexia wasn’t already a serious illness in America, it actually has an embedded problem that is often overlooked. Although many women are known to have this disorder, society’s influence has convinced us that anorexia is exclusively a woman’s problem.
According to a study by the Harvard University of Medicine in 2007, 25 percent of Americans who were diagnosed with an eating disorder were male.
The males I’ve known rarely confess feelings of illness or pain. They bear their discomforts without complaint and go through the day feeling ill because they would rather suffer than look weak.
This is exactly how some men with eating disorders act when they possess this “womanly problem.” They will not confess to having an eating disorder for the fear of becoming emasculated.
If men are overweight, they may be compared to women because they are not muscular and slender like the men in health magazines. They actually possess “womanly” qualities such as curves or a bust similar to a woman’s.
Because they are compared to a woman’s shape, they may strive to avoid becoming emasculated by developing an eating disorder to lose the extra weight. By having this disorder they may conceal their “feminine illness” because they fear the comparison to women will make them look weak as well. In other words, by trying to look more like a man by developing a woman’s disorder, they will automatically be considered weak because women signify weakness.
It is also said that homosexual men make up a large sum of anorexic/bulimic males.
According to the Psychiatric Times, 20 percent of males with eating disorders are gay, one of the reasons being that there is a high demand in the gay community for men to look a certain way. Even in places that are very accepting of homosexuality, more discrimination may lie within the gay community.
Expectations of looking healthy, lean and muscular lead to low self-esteem and promising chances of eating disorders. Although we have come a long way, we still live in homophobic times. Therefore, some gay males may not admit to their disorder for the fear of being a gay man who also has an eating disorder.
Men and women both develop these disorders in very similar ways. Just like women who become ill, men have similar psychological or self-esteem issues that could trigger anorexia or bulimia. The only difference is that many men are not coming forward with their problems, or they are not aware that they have one.
I find it very disturbing that a disease as serious as anorexia or bulimia is gendered.
Because eating disorders are considered women’s issues, it is difficult for men to seek help. But eating disorders can happen to anyone, and if we are all aware of this, men could start receiving the help they thought they could or should not have. This illness in men is simply overlooked, and I am certain that male anorexia will continue to increase because of the growing demands of media and society.
Although it is very hard to pinpoint exactly how important this issue is in male lives, it should not go unnoticed, and it should not be ignored.
Osterhaus is a Seneca sophomore in journalism.
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