Dysmorphia: Male Anorexia

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Many women suffer from anorexia, and now men have a similar disorder. It's called muscle dysmorphia, and if you body build, you may know what I'm talking about. The worst thing about this disorder is that some guys might have it and be completely unaware.

what is muscle dysmorphia?

Muscle dysmorphia is the opposite of anorexia. Unlike anorexia, which makes one believe that they're overweight, muscle dysmorphia bequeaths the illusion that one does not have big enough muscles.

People with both anorexia and muscle dysmorphia share a condition called body dysmorphia, an illness that leads them to constantly imagine that their body needs to change even though it is fine by normal standards. Muscle dysmorphia is still a relatively new psychological disorder; doctors at Brown and Keele University in England discovered this disorder not too long ago, but it is definitely real.

Dysmorphia is an obsessive-compulsive disorder that affects a person's perception of their body image. Most men who have this psychological illness are rather muscular when compared to the rest of the population, but they nonetheless wear baggy clothes and refuse to take their shirts off in public out of fear of being ridiculed because of their (anticipated) small size.

It can be quite serious and needs to be treated. Muscular dysmorphia might not have as direct an impact on a man's health as anorexia, but its repercussions can still have grave effects on a person's life. Some of the symptoms can cause irreparable damage to the body and the negative impact it can have on one's social life can take years to fix.

do you have dysmorphia?

Men who have this illness will spend countless hours at the gym every day, lifting weights obsessively. They will always check to see if they gained mass, and constantly complain that they are too thin or too small and need to bulk up.

They will be fixated on eating the right things and adjust their entire life around gaining mass. It might sound like virtually every guy at the gym, but dysmorphia is an extreme case of bodybuilding on the brain.

Men with this condition exaggerate every aspect of bodybuilding to the point of delusion. Eating the right food will not simply be a conviction; it's going to be a phobia. Time spent away from the gym will cause anxiety and stress, and life outside the gym will suffer.

Social life, job opportunities, work, dates, and anything else that can interfere with time spent at the gym will take a backseat. In extreme cases of dysmorphia, men will over-workout until they damage their muscles, sometimes permanently.

And then, they turn to steroids...