Treatment Challenges for Men with Eating Disorders
An excellent article by Roger Collier on canadian site cmaj.ca overviewing the struggles that men with eating disorders face and why many wait until it is too late before seeking treatment.
Treatment Challenges for Men with Eating Disorders
Men with eating disorders have far more treatment options than a decade ago but their needs still go largely unaddressed in what remains a female-centric realm. That’s cause for concern, warn experts on eating disorders, especially considering the difficulty of getting men into treatment in the first place.
"There is already enormous stigma for having something that is considered a ‘female problem,’" says Tom Wooldridge, assistant professor of psychology at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, California.
Though research over the past decade indicates men account for a quarter of cases of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia — far more than previously believed — treatment is still largely geared toward women. In fact, it even exists at the diagnosis stage. Among the factors identified as possible indicators of an eating disorder, for example, is irregular menstruation.
The traditional format of treatment programs may also be ill suited for men. Therapy often takes place in a group setting, in which women typically outnumber men by a wide margin. It’s no stretch to propose that an 18-year-old male with anorexia would be reluctant to share his fears and insecurities in such an environment. After all, it’s not as though boys are frequently encouraged to reflect upon their emotional well-being.
"Males are taught to repress their feelings to the point where they have difficulty even identifying what they are feeling," says Merryl Bear, director of the National Eating Disorder Information Centre, a nonprofit organization based in Toronto, Ontario. "So much of it has to do with how we manage our emotions and how we solve our problems. If we displace our emotions and problems onto our bodies, we are more likely to be at risk of harmful behaviours."
Discussions in group sessions dominated by women can also veer into territory foreign to men, focusing on subjects such as missed menstrual periods and distorted body images attributed to waif-like models in fashion magazines. The clinicians in charge likely have little experience working with male patients. Some men in treatment have even suggested there was a feminist bent to the group sessions they attended, making them feel more like intruders than confidants.
"It is really common for men to feel very alienated," says Wooldridge, who writes about male eating problems on his blog The Forgotten Gender (www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-forgotten-gender). "If it involves groups, they are likely to be the only male."
The majority of the physical and psychological problems associated with eating disorders, however, are similar for both genders. So the solution to ineffective engagement of men probably lies in modifying existing programs, rather than coming up with something brand new, suggests Wooldridge. "I’m not convinced we need entirely different treatment models, but we could develop a way of speaking to men that acknowledges the differences — to help in understanding the experience of what it’s like to be a man with this disorder."
Indeed, this appears to be one of the guiding tenets at Rogers Memorial Hospital in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, which offers an eating disorder program exclusively for men. "You have to facilitate a level of comfort for men. That seems to be an important thing," says Dr. Ted Weltzin, medical director of eating disorder services.
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At Fairwinds Treatment Center, we treat both adolescent and adult male clients to recover from eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia and compulsive overeating.
For more information on the treatment options for males at Fairwinds Treatment Center, please call 727-449-0300 or email here.
