¿Qué desencadena los trastornos alimentarios en los hombres?

Oh, es una pena

We know that young women with eating disorders often feel intensely ashamed, and may hide their problem. With anorexian, they often cover up with baggy clothes and pretend at mealtimes that they've already eaten. With bulimia, los paquetes de comida vacíos pueden ser introducidos de contrabando en el contenedor y los baños públicos utilizados para purgar.

Pero se supone que los hombres no deben preocuparse por su peso, y ciertamente no se espera que muestren que son vulnerables. Dado que 'todo el mundo sabe que los trastornos alimentarios son un problema de chicas', admitir no solo el malestar emocional sino también una respuesta aparentemente poco masculina a ello conlleva un doble estigma.

Muchos de los desencadenantes de los trastornos alimentarios difieren entre hombres y mujeres. Los hombres que desarrollan trastornos alimentarios a menudo been overweight at some point. Women, on the other hand, are more likely to have felt they were overweight when they weren't. Men are also more likely to worry about their weight because of how it might affect their athletic ability: for women, a 'beautiful' body is an issue all by itself.

While most men with eating disorders aren't gay, men who are gay are up to 10 times more likely than heterosexual men to develop an eating disorder. Interestingly, lesbian women are menos propenso a preocuparse about their appearance than gay men.

Muscle dysmorphia - an obsession with developing the right muscles, which has much overlap with eating disorders - is much more common in men than in women. Closely linked to this is the use of anabolic steroids, as común en hombres as anorexia and bulimia combined in women.

Si un instructor de fitness le pidiera a una empresa de video que produjera un video de ejercicios en el que deliberadamente cubrieran su físico tonificado, lo más probable es que lo despidieran rápidamente o lo consideraran loco. De la misma manera, ninguna revista va a permitir que una foto salga en su portada en la que la modelo tenga un estómago flácido sobresaliendo de debajo de su camisa: todos saben que la belleza vende. Y Photoshop^® means they don't have to.

Few icons have either the power or the inclination to fight back - when Kate Winslet announced that she was refusing to allow her photos in a recent cosmetic advert to be photoshopped, it made international headlines. Yet young women who watch exercise videos led by an instructor in a body-contour outfit are more likely to feel unhappy afterwards, compared to doing the same workout while watching the same instructor cubierto.

Men, too, are more likely to be dissatisfied with their bodies when they're exposed to images of muscular, idealised men. These same images are more likely to causemento drive themselves at the gym to aumentar su propia musculatura - and, as we've seen above, a desire for the perfect muscular body is often a precursor to an eating disorder in men.

Then there's social media - do endless carefully vetted images of everyone you know having a marvellous time, or pictured only in the most flattering poses, play a role? Dr. Sandeep Ranote is a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, who has specialised in eating disorders for 15 years. She warns that we ignore this element at our peril. "We would be naive to say that there is no link between social media and eating disorders as well as other mental health problems like low self-esteem, depression and self-harm. We don't have absolute proof yet, and we don't know how to deal with it - but we definitely need to keep looking at it."

Como en muchos aspectos de la vida, estar prevenido es estar preparado. Los médicos tienen el deber de reconocer que los hombres pueden mostrar signos iniciales diferentes de un trastorno alimentario en comparación con las mujeres, y tenerlo en cuenta como un posible diagnóstico.

La industria de la moda hace promesas vacías sobre comportarse de manera responsable en lo que respecta a la imagen corporal: he visto innumerables historias a lo largo de los años sobre las casas de moda 'uniendo fuerzas para prohibir modelos talla cero', sin embargo, constantemente vuelven a aparecer. Para los hombres, puede ser aún más difícil. En un mundo donde los niveles de obesidad están disparándose, la aptitud física tiene un gran prestigio social y el físico del atleta bien esculpido es poco probable que se vuelva impopular en el corto plazo.

Dr Ranote is convinced that who gives the message is crucial. "Using role models is, if anything, more important for boys and men than for girls and women. Men will engage with their stories - the Campaña Estado Mental, set up six years ago by the Rugby League y Rugby Union, has done amazing work in raising awareness of mental health problems. They've largely focused on depressive disorders, but they're starting to look at eating disorders as well, getting people to start conversations at local club level. The Asociación de Fútbol (FA) is also working at local levels to raise awareness - I would love to see the FA working with the Real Colegio de Psiquiatras so we can maximise our impact. I would love the English Cricket Board doing more - they have the power to get through to men in a way that doctors never could."

There are other shining examples of how we can beat the stigma. The brave decision of the international rugby referee Nigel Owens compartirá su lucha de 27 años contra la bulimia is a case in point. You don't get much more manly than a rugby referee. And if it could happen to him, it could happen to anyone.