Bigorexia
Today I finished reading a book: The Adonis Complex: How to Identify, Treat and Prevent Body Obsession in Men and Boys.
The book offers stunning evidence of men's silent suffering to achieve Adonis-like beauty: secret dietary rituals, hair transplants, penis enlargement, cosmetic surgery, and abuse of steroids, ephedrine, fat burners, and diuretics. Two clinical disorders, "body dysmorphia" and "bigorexia," a chilling inverse of anorexia, in which men continue to think they are tiny even when they are alarmingly muscled, are also introduced.
Do you have an obsession with being muscular and a fear of being too small?
Some bodybuilders just don't know when to stop. Some get so obsessed with building muscles and sculpting their bodies that they develop a disorder similar to anorexia, called bigorexia or muscle dysmorphia.
Bigorexia (muscular dysmorphia) is a reverse anorexia. Mostly bodybuilders have it, they are never satisfied with their bodies and they are always unhappy. People with this disorder obsess about being small and undeveloped. They worry that they are too little and too frail. Even if they have good muscle mass, they believe their muscles are inadequate.
Men with bigorexia are prone to depression, using anabolic steroids and forgoing social events to spend several hours a day at the gym, lifting weights. Some continue to exercise even after they've suffered a serious injury, such as a dislocated shoulder.
In efforts to fix their perceived "smallness", people with muscle dysmorphia lift weights, do resistance training, and exercise compulsively. They may take steroids or other muscle-building drugs, a practice with potentially lethal consequences.
They cannot relax and enjoy life without worrying about how other people may be seeing, and criticizing, the perceived smallness.
In almost all cases, people with muscle dysmorphia are not small at all. Many have well-developed musculature, and some even compete in body building competitions.
The book offers stunning evidence of men's silent suffering to achieve Adonis-like beauty: secret dietary rituals, hair transplants, penis enlargement, cosmetic surgery, and abuse of steroids, ephedrine, fat burners, and diuretics. Two clinical disorders, "body dysmorphia" and "bigorexia," a chilling inverse of anorexia, in which men continue to think they are tiny even when they are alarmingly muscled, are also introduced.
Do you have an obsession with being muscular and a fear of being too small?
Some bodybuilders just don't know when to stop. Some get so obsessed with building muscles and sculpting their bodies that they develop a disorder similar to anorexia, called bigorexia or muscle dysmorphia.
Bigorexia (muscular dysmorphia) is a reverse anorexia. Mostly bodybuilders have it, they are never satisfied with their bodies and they are always unhappy. People with this disorder obsess about being small and undeveloped. They worry that they are too little and too frail. Even if they have good muscle mass, they believe their muscles are inadequate.
Men with bigorexia are prone to depression, using anabolic steroids and forgoing social events to spend several hours a day at the gym, lifting weights. Some continue to exercise even after they've suffered a serious injury, such as a dislocated shoulder.
In efforts to fix their perceived "smallness", people with muscle dysmorphia lift weights, do resistance training, and exercise compulsively. They may take steroids or other muscle-building drugs, a practice with potentially lethal consequences.
They cannot relax and enjoy life without worrying about how other people may be seeing, and criticizing, the perceived smallness.
In almost all cases, people with muscle dysmorphia are not small at all. Many have well-developed musculature, and some even compete in body building competitions.
posted by Joe DiAngelo at 9:56 PM PERMALINK
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