Author Rochelle Hentges sites a 5-year-old University of Toronto study which notes that at least 1 in 6 eating disorder sufferers are men.

  Chances are that the number is now higher.  But despite the growing number of anorexic and bulimic men, treatment facilities and programs for men are almost non-existent and many are left to attempt recovery on their own.

The February 15th article cites studies which indicate that “70 percent of high school boys have dieted to lose weight,” according to Madelyn Fernstrom, director of the weight management center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.  Thanks to Hollywood and TV, she notes, more men are beginning to have issues with their bodies, trying to keep up with images of movie hunks and buff television stars. 

Because anorexia and bulimia have always been touted as “female” disorders, notes the author, men are less likely to seek help, even when they realize that their problem has gotten out of hand.  Unfortunately, the longer the disorders exist, the more difficult recovery will be, so the men who wait to seek help set themselves up for a long and challenging recovery. 

When men with eating disorders take steps to seek treatment, their options are quite limited.  As a matter of fact, there’s only one all-male residential eating disorder treatment facility in the entire country, located at the Rogers Memorial Hospital in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.  Dr. Theodore Weltzin, director of the clinic, notes that admissions to this male-specific program have more than doubled in the last five years and he expects the number to continue to increase.

"If you look at male ads now, you'll see parts of men's bodies, like a completely ripped male abdomen, and no head," he said, pointing out that Western culture is beginning to depersonalize and objectify men, much as women have been treated throughout the last several decades. 

"The more that happens, the more eating disorders were going to see in males," Weltzin said. "I would not be surprised if 10 or 15 years down the road, rates of eating disorders in men would be comparable to those in women."