Heavy men represented power and money. Today, trim, muscular men grace underwear advertisements and TV shows, and society looks with disgust upon the figures of the Roman elite. This change in ideals has resulted in alarming numbers of men suffering from eating disorders, according to the authors of a new book being touted as the first to address men's concerns with body image. They are worried about having flabby stomachs and losing more hair. According to the book, therapists are seeing 50 percent more men with eating disorders than they did 10 years ago, and about 40 percent of American men want to be thinner, while an additional 40 percent want to bulk up.
Men are spending more money on plastic surgery than in the past, the authors continue.
Just as women's magazines featuring underweight cover girls and stories on staying slim have set the standards for women's body shapes since the 1960s, images in popular media during the last 10 years are making men more sensitive about their physiques. Adding to the problem, the authors write, is that science and society have viewed fat primarily as a women's issue, which has led to men being misdiagnosed and excluded from treatment for eating disorders. People think something must be wrong with a man if he has an eating disorder. Paul Mueller, spokesman for Rogers Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin, which started the nation's first residential eating disorder program for men two years ago, said the most common disorder in men harks back to Roman times - bulimia nervosa, overeating, then getting rid of food by vomiting, using laxatives or compulsive exercise. This disorder is 10 times more prevalent, in men and women, than anorexia, he said.