(lighthearted piano music)
- Hi there, thank you so much for checking back.
Now this week's video is something
that I have heard from a lot of you,
some of my subscribers, as well as on Twitter,
who either have a friend or you yourself
are suffering from an eating disorder and you're a man.
Now I know that a lot of us are thinking
"yeah, I knew that guys had eating disorders,"
but it's something that I wanted to address
because to be honest, the symptoms can be different.
There's a lot more stigma and different stereotypes
that come along with a guy having an eating disorder.
And I just want to make sure that I'm addressing
all eating disorders, that nobody's being left out,
and I also welcome comments and questions
and things you want me to address
because this is just going to blah-blah ...
Sorry, this is just going to kind of be an overview
of what an eating disorder looks like in a man
and how it's different from in women.
Now the first thing is that a lot of people will assume
that a guy with an eating disorder is homosexual.
Now I know that in the homosexual community,
that eating disorders are more prevalent in men,
but not all eating disorders in men
are from homosexual men,
so that's a stigma in and of itself.
I heard from a lot of you guys out there
that people will assume that you're gay
just because you have an eating disorder,
and one has nothing to do with the other, right?
And that's really frustrating.
I find that very frustrating from a therapeutic side
because it's even harder then for you to even talk about it
because if you tell somebody, then they might assume
something completely separate about your life
than what's really going on in your eating disorder, right?
Now the way that it kind of differs from men to women
is that men usually have an exercise problem.
That's not saying all of you do,
but a lot of guys tend to focus on over-exercising,
compulsive exercise and usually a lot of the research,
and like I said, these are all generalizations,
this is just an overview, but a lot of the research says
that men with eating disorders usually
want to excel at a sport or they tried out,
let's say maybe you tried out in high school
or middle school and you didn't make the team,
and you're working really hard to make the team
or to prove that you are good enough
for however you're making it work in your brain,
were trying to be really good at a sport
and so that's why men usually tend to over-exercise.
And another thing that's very different from men and women
is that women usually have a certain type of person
that we see, whether it's in the media, on TV,
when we're walking down the street, whatever,
a lot of eating disorder women think thin is better,
"I wanna be really skinny," that's kind of the way
that a woman tends to focus on her eating disorder,
and like I said, I'm generalizing,
but a guy doesn't have a set way that they want to look.
Some people might want to be a thinner guy
like a Mick Jagger or something, you know,
or somebody might wanna be bulked up
like Arnold Schwarzenegger,
or more like a David Beckham, or ...
I mean there's all sorts of types of men
and women find all sorts of different types
of men attractive and in magazines there's all sorts
of different types of men,
and they even banned having too skinny of male models
walking the runway, which is great,
but why haven't they done it for women?
That just really pisses me off,
but anyway, so that can be really difficult
because your symptoms would be different
if you're trying to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger
or if you're trying to like Mick Jagger,
those are two totally different body types.
And that's why a lot of men
with eating disorders go undiagnosed.
To be honest, to me, that's really sad
that as a therapist and as a community of
eating disorder professionals that
we're not able to properly help you.
So, I apologize for the fact that it goes unrecognized.
One of the studies that I quote a lot
when I'm reaching out to other people
and talking about eating disorders
is that over eight million people in the United States
suffer from eating disorders, and of those,
seven million are women, okay?
But that leaves a million guys
having trouble with an eating disorder
and it goes undiagnosed, and you know, unrecognized
and you're afraid to talk about it
because the stigma is even bigger, right?
So I encourage you, talk about it,
let us know how it is, let us know what goes on,
let us know if you found a professional
that's really helpful.
If you have anything that we can use
and we can share because I'm sure
many of us have known someone
who has had an eating disorder,
or we've thought they might have an issue
with over-exercise and this can be
great information to help share,
and let's break through the stigma.
Everybody is different.
Women, men, every eating disorder is different.
Why should one go untreated while the other
is more widely talked about?
That doesn't make any sense to me,
so let's keep talking about it.
And I did look up some so ...
Excuse me while I go look something up.
I have a list of different programs that take men
because unfortunately, I have worked
at three, four different treatment centers
and none of them accepted men.
That was something that was really frustrating.
I had one guy that I did see on the outpatient level,
but to be in groups and stuff wasn't accepted.
So there are a couple of centers
that do focus on men with eating disorders and they are
Rogers Memorial Hospital in Wyoming,
River Oaks Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana,
Eating Disorder Program at the
University of Iowa in Iowa City,
The Center for Eating Disorders at Sheppard Pratt,
and that's a great program, I've had a few women
come from there as well because they do have a woman program
but they also have a men's program,
and that's in Baltimore.
And they have Red Stone in Remuda Ranch for boys,
so that's more like adolescents and everything,
but I know Remuda Ranch also has a woman's program.
So those are just some resources.
Help spread the word, let people know
there is treatment available out there
and you don't have to suffer in silence.
We're all working together, this is a community.
This is something that we all can help
support each other on, right?
So let's break through the stigmas,
let's keep spreading the word,
retweet this video so people will know,
share it, post, like it, whatever,
so that we let people know that
just because you're a man doesn't mean
that you can't have an eating disorder,
and it also doesn't mean that you're gay, right?
It's a totally separate issue.
And don't forget to check out my website.
I have a free workbook on there
and it's not gender specific in any way.
You can click on the little tab that says Workbook
and you can download it from there,
and it has some videos and information
that can be really helpful.
And let's keep working together right?
No one's alone, we're all in this together
as you work towards a Healthy Mind
and a Healthy Body.