Boys in grip of ‘reverse anorexia’

A GROUNDRBEAKING school program will teach teenage boys to deal with body image issues as young men resort to overexercising and steroids to obtain ripped muscles.

Australia’s leading eating disorder organisation, The Butterfly Foundation, will today launch a new national program called RESET for schoolboys aged 13-18 in a bid to reduce the stigma around body image problems and eating disorders in young men.

It comes amid concerns young men are overexercising in an extreme pursuit for muscle growth, driven by expectations of needing to have a sixpack, biceps and pecks.

New Butterfly Foundation research shows boys feel pressured to have abs, and to constantly go to the gym, with 90 per cent of young men saying they exercise primarily to gain muscle.

Body image academic Dr Scott Griffiths helped the organisation develop the program and said many young men were struggling with “muscle dysmorphia” – a delusional belief their body was too skinny and they must build muscles at any cost.

“Muscle dysmorphia is a body image disorder; you can think of it as a reverse anorexia,” Dr Griffiths said.

“It’s not abusing laxatives and diuretics so much as it is abusing steroids and the focus of concerns about appearance are muscularity rather than thinness.”

Butterfly Foundation chief executive Christine Morgan said the program would act as an early intervention for boys to address any body image issues before they developed into a disorder.

“What we have to do reset our expectations and conversations with boys and young men to say ‘hey, you could be vulnerable (to an eating disorder)’,” Ms Morgan said.

The program is available Australia-wide.

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