What image comes to mind with the words "eating disorder"? A graceful, bone-thin ballerina; a girlish Olympic gymnast; Karen Carpenter? Those images may be accurate, but they're incomplete. The young boy on the high school wrestling team, the neighbor's kid who obsessively lifts weights, and even your own son can fall prey to a disease whose symptoms are not limited to young girls.
Eating disorders run the gamut from anorexia nervosa - loss of more than 15% of body weight driven by a distorted body image - to bulimia nervosa - loss of control over eating characterized by repetitive bingeing and purging - to quick drops or gains in weight through laxative and steroid abuse. These debilitating forms of the disease are increasing among males.
"It's a mistake to think of this as a female disease," says Dr. Arnold Andersen, professor or psychiatry and director of eating disorder services at the University of Iowa. Dr. Andersen's experience treating males with these problems indicates that one in six people with eating disorders is male. Statistics reveal that approximately one million boys and men struggle with eating disorders.