Eating
Disorders
Men with Eating Disorders Have Healthy Body "Ideal"
February 17, 2004- Eating
disorders in men may be fueled by a distorted perception of their own
bodies, rather than an unhealthy notion of what the "ideal" body is, the results
of a small study suggests.
Researchers found that while men with
anorexia or
bulimia saw themselves as much
heavier than they actually were, their idea of an ideal body was no different
from that of healthy men their age.
Distorted body image is well known to be at the roots of
eating disorders. But studies
have traditionally not distinguished between patients' perceptions of their own
bodies and what they believe to be the ideal body, according to the new study's
lead author.
"Our study suggests that the body image distortion in eating disorders is
based primarily on a distorted body perception, and not on the body ideals of
patients," Dr. Barbara Mangweth of the University Clinics Innsbruck in Austria
told Reuters Health.
This distinction is important, according to Mangweth and her colleagues,
because it could make a
difference in
treatment. For example, men with eating disorders may not need to be
"re-educated" about healthy body fat levels, they report in the International
Journal of Eating Disorders.
Whether the findings might extend to women, who suffer from eating disorders
much more often than men do, is unclear, according to the researchers. However,
they point to a recent study that found normal-weight, dieting women had
distorted perceptions of their own bodies, but had body ideals similar to those
of women who were not dieting.
The new study involved 27 men ages 19 to 43 with anorexia or bulimia, and 42
athletic and non-athletic men of the same age. Mangweth's team had the men take
a computerized test that allowed them to "morph" an image of a male body to have
various levels of fat and muscle.
Participants had to choose images that best represented their own bodies, the
body they would like to have, and the one they thought women would prefer.
The researchers found no differences between the groups when it came to body
fat ideals. However, men with eating disorders saw themselves as twice as fat as
they actually were, while healthy participants showed no such distortion.
The findings, according to Mangweth, suggest that in both research and
therapy, it is important to distinguish patients' beliefs about their bodies
from their general body preferences.
SOURCE: International Journal of Eating Disorders, January 2004.
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