“Hi, I’m William and I am a man who is proudly in eating disorder recovery.”
As a result, men are on average sicker when they’re finally diagnosed and more likely to require hospitalization, which makes their path to recovery that much harder. At the same time, clinicians are grappling with how to better support men and boys experiencing body-image problems. “I would look at men’s health magazines and resent that I didn’t look like that and be scared that I never would,” Hornby recalled of his 11-year-old self.
Because eating disorders have been cast as a female problem, men may not recognize that their relationship with food is also troubled. Those who do realize they have a problem may not know where to turn for help. Until about 10 years ago, the criteria a person needed to meet in order to be formally diagnosed with an eating disorder included loss of menstrual cycle — a physiological impossibility for men.