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Males :Eating Disorders Males: Steroids

Eating Disorders:

 10% or more of eating disorder victims are male. Eating disorders in males are clincially similar to eating disorders in females: 38% of women and 24% of men are trying to lose weight. Among highschool students, 44% of the females and 15% of the males try to lose weight.

Typically speaking, men seem more comfortable with their weight and perceive less pressure to be thin than women.

However, a source of eating disorders is Occupation. For example, gymnasts, runners, body builders, rowers, wrestlers, jockeys, dancers, and swimmers are particularly vulnerable to eating disorders because their sports necessitate weight restriction.

In the media, males are seeing increasing media messages regarding dieting (e.g. Jenny Craig), and the ideal of muscularity (e.g. Bowflex).

Males with anorexia nervosa display more sexual anxieties than females and 80% of males with anorexia were raised in families that regarded sex as a taboo subject.

Average men have V-shaped bodies and men with eating disorders strive for a lean and toned figure. It is also true that males with eating disorders receive negative reactions from their peers (they are teased when doing sports) and may have difficulty producing testosterone.

Males develop eating disorders because they were probably influenced as a child. When you are made fun of physcially, then you tend to be ashamed of your body. Males who are not influenced while growing up tend to be non-athletic while males who are influenced strive to become athletic.

Anorexia Nervosa:

Behavioral Characteristics:

  • Excessive dieting, fasting, restricted diet
  • Food rituals
  • Preoccupation with body building, weight lifting, or muscle toning
  • Compulsive exercise
  • Difficulty eating with others, lying about eating
  • Frequently weighing self
  • Preoccupation with food
  • Focus on certain body parts; e.g., buttocks, thighs, stomach
  • Disgust with body size or shape
  • Distortion of body size; i.e., feels fat even though others tell him he is already very thin

    Emotional and Mental Characteristics:

  • Almost a phobia of gaining weight
  • Depression
  • Social isolation
  • Strong need to be in control
  • Difficulty thinking and concentrating
  • Conflict over sexual identity or sexual preference
  • Low self-esteem
  • Difficulty expressing feelings
  • Have the need to be good at everything
  • Insomnia and germaphobic

    Physical Characteristics:

  • 15% or more lighter, which is below what is expected for age, height, activity level
  • Fatigue; powerless
  • Muscular weakness
  • Lowered body temperature, blood pressure, pulse rate
  • Thinning hair or hair loss
  • Heart arrhythmia
  • Lowered testosterone levels

    About Anorexia:
    People with this disorder think they are fat even when they become dangerously thin. They are obsessed with losing weight and often weigh themselves frequently, develop unusual eating habits, such as avoiding meals, weighing and carefully proportioning meals and in some cases, the individual compulsively exercises and/or abuses laxatives, enemas and diuretics. This eating disorder can cause stunts in normal growth patterns and can delay the menstrual cycle or stop it completely, as a certain percent of body fat is needed to start and maintain the menstrual cycle. Most anorexics fall below the average weight for their age and height.

    Bulimia Nervosa:

    Behavioral Characteristics:

  • A sense of no control
  • Vomiting, misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or fasting, compulsive exercise (possibly including excessive running, body building, or weight lifting) are done
  • Hiding food and eating in secret
  • Frequently weighing self
  • Focus on certain body parts; e.g., buttocks, thighs, stomach
  • Disgust with body size or shape
  • A feeling of being fat when average or thin

    Emotional and Mental Characteristics:

  • An almost phobia with gaining weight
  • Shallow
  • Works hard to please others
  • Depression
  • Social isolation
  • Conflict over sexual identity or sexual preference
  • Difficulty expressing feelings

    Physical Characteristics:

  • Weight fluctuations
  • Loss of dental enamel due to self-induced vomiting
  • Constipation
  • Swollen salivary glands
  • Cardiac arrhythmia due to electrolyte imbalances
  • Esophageal tears, gastric rupture
  • Fatigue; poweless

    About Bulimia:
    People with this disorder eat a large amount of food at one sitting (binging) and then feel guilty for eating so much, are disgusted by the amount of food they’ve eaten and/or are afraid of gaining weight, so they throw up promptly after. (Purging). Bulimics, like anorexics, are intensely dissatisfied with their bodies. Bulimics, unlike anorexics, usually fall into the normal weight category for their age and height.

    Treatment

  • 1) Restoring weight lost to severe dieting and purging
  • 2) Treating the psychological problems that accompany eating disorders: distortion of body image, low self-esteem, and interpersonal conflicts
  • 3) Achieving long-term success in maintaining normal weight, eating patterns and growth patterns, or full recovery.

    Steroids:

     There is a huge problem with males and steroids. Males take steroids to become stronger and muscular or to become the "ideal man," as Western society demands. The steroids that males take are usually Anabolic-androgenic steroids. “Anabolic” refers to muscle-building, and “androgenic” refers to increased masculine characteristics. “Steroids” refers to the class of drugs. The abuse of anabolic steroids lead to irreversable, even fatal, health problems.

    In today's world, many athletes abuse steroids to enhance performance. Steroids can be taken orally or injected, in cycles of weeks or months. Many athletes are suspended or even banned from their profession is they use steriods as this provides an unfair advantage. However, rules regarding steroids in professional wrestling are looser - many wrestlers use/d steriods, as in the case of the deceased Eddie Guerrero.

    In the long-term abuse of steroids, liver complications, jaundice (when your skin becomes yellow; a result of liver problems), cancer, fluid rentention, high blood pressure, bad cholesterol, kidney complications, severe acne and trembling can occur.

    Other symptoms related to males only include reduced sperm count, decrease of testicle size, infertility, baldness, development of breasts, and increased risk for prostate cancer.

    It is also a known fact that a person of any gender who uses anabolic steroids have a higher risk of transmitting or contracting HIV/AIDS or hepatitis.

    Steroid abusers also become more aggressive, suffer from insomnia, extreme irritability, delusions and impared judgement.

    Lastly, results from the 2006 Monitoring the Future Study, which surveys students in eighth, tenth, and twelfth grades, show that 1.6% of eighth graders, 1.8% of tenth graders, and 2.7% of twelfth graders reported using steroids at least once in their lifetimes in the United States. Can you imagine how much steriods are used worldwide? And, is receiving awards, medals or fame really worth a shortened lifetime filled with health complications?

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