Go Gok! Men need to talk about anorexia
I APPLAUD Gok Wan for speaking so openly about suffering with anorexia. He has previously admitted taking up to 50 laxatives a day to lose weight. And in an interview last week, the fashionista, 42, revealed that he once lost a staggering 11 stone in eight months – a figure so shocking it really hammers home how damaging an eating disorder can be. While we commonly associate eating disorders with young women, one in four of those diagnosed are in fact men. And as worrying figures showed this week, the number of men being referred to eating disorder units in the UK has soared by more than 40 per cent in the past two years. We have recently seen a wave of wellknown people admitting their mental health conditions, from depression and painkiller addiction to severe grief. Some of my medical colleagues can be cynical about these celebrity disclosures – but I firmly believe they help to dissolve stigma around often taboo issues, and get us talking about subjects that must be discussed.