Meet some young men who want you to know the truth about eating disorders.
Chris thought being anorexic just meant being really skinny.
Patrick thought only models got anorexia.
Zach hadn’t heard much about eating disorders at all.
And when a doctor told Brady he might have an eating disorder, the then 14-year-old’s reaction was, “Me? But I’m a guy!”
All those young men learned the hard way that eating disorders are life-threatening mental illnesses that can affect anyone, regardless of age or race or gender.
“Eating disorders happen to guys the same way they happen to girls,” says Dr. Ovidio Bermudez, medical director of the Eating Disorders Program at Laureate Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital in Tulsa, Oltla. “It’s not different. It’s not weird. It’s not just for girls. Men can suffer the same emotional and physical complications from an eating disorder.”
In fact, more than 1 million boys and men in the U.S. are struggling with anorexia or bulimia. Experts have long estimated that about 10 percent of those with eating disorders are male, but a 2007 Harvard University study indicated that boys and men might account for as many as 25 percent of eating disorder sufferers.
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