Estimated 1 Million Men Suffer From “Manorexia”

Manorexia….what? Anorexic men? Yes it’s true, there are men that are anorexic and have eating disorders. While the male sex is not often associated with anorexia nervosa, there are still cases when men have a problem with their body image and develop eating disorders.

In my opinion, when men have a problem with their body image they try things such as dieting and working out in order to change their image to establish a muscular look whether it’s the “Buff” type or the “Cut” type. So how does it become that a man can have a problem with his body image and starts to change it by not eating  and exercising right? Perhaps hey start starving themselves and exercising without being properly educated on how to establish a self image that is a healthy image or state and it starts rolling into an out of control “Snow-ball effect”.

When you starve yourself your body will both burn fat and utilize muscle for energy. Your body in a state of “Starvation” will utilize the muscle for energy more than it will the fat. Why? Because fat is stored energy and the body adapts to changes and will store energy where it can and utilize it from other sources such as muscle. This is why weight lifters, bodybuilders, and fitness nuts rely on protein supplements so that they don’t send their body into a state of muscle atrophy (The breaking down of muscle) and lose muscle while they exercise. You can not turn fat into muscle. It’s not chemically possible. Your body will burn fat to increase energy for the physical exertion but does not “turn” into muscle. You may see some bodybuilders put on excessive weight and they look huge and yet kind of fat. What they are doing is eating a lot to feed the muscle and in the meantime unused energy gets stored as fat. They later start to “cut” down by burning fat while still maintaining the muscle with supplements and that’s how they get that hulking look.

Some people think that by starving themselves their body will burn fat for energy when it will actually store fat and use it as a last resort. They will lose fat weight but will lose muscle weight in the process as well and when this happens it makes it hard on the skeletal system as well. Bones are strong, but muscle is what pretty much keeps things together and moving properly. When the muscle is weak and the skeleton has to support the weight of it self and fat without muscle holding everything together properly it creates a lot of strain on the joints and ultimately it can lead to a string of health problems.

O.k., so with that said I have totally strayed off from my original intentions and that was to provide a little link love to another Health And Wellness Blog here at b5Media called Breaking The Mirror. At Breaking The Mirror, writer Angelique touches on everything that has to do with eating disorders and recently gave a brief update about men with eating disorders (Links Below). So if you’re a guy and think you may have an eating disorder then you should not be ashamed because you’re not the only one. However, you know as well as I do that you need to do something about it. Swallow your pride and take a read through Breaking The Mirror.

Dudes And Eating Disorders

Males With Anorexia