Eating Disorders in Men More Common than Realized, Study Argues

Eating disorders are often more common in men than society is aware, researchers from Boston Children's Hospital argue in a new study published in JAMA Pediatrics.

The report looked at 5,527 teenage boys from across the US and found that 18 percent were "extremely concerned" about their weight and the shape they were in, according to the press release describing the study.

"Males and females have very different concerns about their weight and appearance," said lead author Alison Field from the Boston Children's Hospital Adolescent Medicine Division. Evaluations for eating disorders, she argued, are designed to target girls' concerns regarding thinness rather than boys' focus on muscularity.

The researcher and her colleague reviewed responses to questionnaires from the Growing Up Today Study, which teens filled out every 12 to 36 months from 1999 to 2010. In doing so, they hoped to better understand how eating disorder symptoms might be tied to obesity, drug use and depression in males.

Those concerned about muscularity and who ingested potentially harmful supplements, growth hormone and steroids were two times as likely to start binge drinking frequently and far more likely than their peers to engage in drug use, the researchers found. Those boys concerned about thinness, meanwhile, were more likely to develop depressive symptoms.

Just under 3 percent of all respondents had full or partial criteria binge-eating disorder, while one-third reported infrequently engaging in binge eating, purging or overeating.

"Clinicians may not be aware that some of their male patients are so preoccupied with their weight and shape that they are using unhealthy methods to achieve the physique they desire," Field said, "and parents are not aware that they should be as concerned about eating disorders and an excessive focus on weight and shape in their sons as in their daughters."