Starved For Perfection: My Struggle With Male Anorexia

By Bob Kerr

Photo by Elena Leya

I was 20 when I developed anorexia. It came in quietly and completely unnoticed at first. I was in my first year of college and I had a huge crush on one of my classmates. I got the classic love-sick puppy symptoms. Butterflies in my stomach, lost in a haze of romantic daydreams and literally unable to eat anything. 

It wasn’t until some time had passed when people started to notice that I lost weight and told me that I was “looking good.” It was the first time in my life that I felt validated after a childhood of teasing and bullying over my body size.

Thus, a seed was planted: Lose weight, get compliments, feel better about myself. Positive reinforcement.

Later on, I started to see food as the enemy. I ate little, avoiding food when I could. When I did eat, I would go on long bike rides to expel the calories I had just taken in. I’d pedal out onto country roads, listening to my Walkman as I prayed that the scale would reward me for my efforts. 

The compliments kept coming. “Wow! You’ve lost so much weight! I can see it in your face!” The attention was a welcome change, but when I was home, I would obsessively check the mirror and the weight scale several times a day. I was still so ashamed of my body, even with the weight loss. Because of the way the loose skin hung off my bones, I still felt fat.

Believe it or not, I didn’t think I had a problem. I was losing weight! Working out! Getting healthy! No shame and self-loathing here, thank you! Just pure motivation! I can’t be anorexic; that’s a girl problem, right?

Photo by I. Yunmai

Reality Check

“About 4% of males may experience anorexia in their lifetime,” says Dr. Karen Trollope-Kumar, the Chief Medical Officer at Body Brave based in Hamilton. “There’s a fair bit of research coming out about muscularity-oriented anorexia that seems to be increasing significantly.” 

Dr. Trollope-Kumar founded Body Brave with her daughter Sonia Kumar, who recovered from a long battle with an eating disorder. They created Body Brave as a way to offer support to those suffering from eating disorders and disordered eating.

When asked if she noticed an increase in males seeking help, Dr. Trollope-Kumar was emphatic: “Oh, yes. And I think it’s partly related to increasing stresses and pressure on boys and men to look a certain way.”

Dr. Trollope-Kumar adds that trauma can play a role and a need to control anxiety can develop eating disorders. “If there’s been a major transition in their lives, moving, parental divorce, some kind of trauma in their childhood — all of these social events can trigger off a desire to restrict food because it’s one of the things that children can restrict,” she says. “There’s so many other things that are not under their control. But when they feel out of control, the one thing they can control is their food intake and their exercise.”

Another part of the population that is at risk are members of the LGBTQ+ community, particularly transgendered and non-binary people. Dr. Trollope-Kumar has observed a rising amount of members coming into Body Brave. “if you are a male biologically, but you transitioned to being female, you might feel uncomfortable in your new body – or the opposite — If you’re a female, you transition to male, you don’t like your curves. You want to be really thin.”

One of the troubling aspects about anorexia is how much it can fly under the radar for the people outside of it – especially parents. It only becomes apparent when the illness is far along.

Photo by M. T. Elgassier

Parental Advisory

The summer of 2001 was my worst bout with anorexia. I was back home from a year of college in Toronto. My parents were gone working for most of the week. Essentially, I was home by myself and the friends I made in Toronto were nowhere near. With no job, no money and nobody around, I leaned in to losing more weight.

Things got worse from there.

At first my parents thought that my weight loss was more of a sign that I was being healthier. But as I got smaller and more frail, they grew more concerned. The turning point was when my mom was cutting my hair and asked me to remove my shirt. When I did, she nearly fainted. She marched me to my father and showed him what I had done. He was stunned.

I had lost over 100 pounds. My skin was a pallid blanket draping over my bony frame.  It didn’t help that I was peroxiding my hair at this point, which made me look even more like a ghost. The truth was plain to everyone but me: I was anorexic and I was disappearing.

My mom threatened to take me out of school to get treatment if I didn’t start gaining weight. (She went as far to call the police to check if she was legally allowed to do this, since I was technically an adult.) While not a tactic that mental health experts might advise, it rattled me. I didn’t want to be ripped away from my friends and my career aspirations. But also, why the hell was my mom so mad at me?! I’m the sick one here!

It stems from fear, according to Dr. Trollope-Kumar. She recalls her own experience with her daughter, Sonia. “I was terrified about my daughter because I knew how dangerous it was. But then we would end up getting into conflicts. And I would question myself, like, ‘why did I fly off the handle yet again?’ And it was because I was afraid.”

Photo by Simon Abel

The Rocky Road to Recovery

After facing the real possibility of being taken out of school and thrown into a treatment centre, I promised my parents that I would work on gaining my weight back. To do this without treatment or any education proved to be extremely difficult and painful.

The main hurdle for me was that I didn’t have the education or tools to realize that this was a mental health problem. I looked at it as only a physical problem. My stomach and my mind were completely out of sync. As I ate more, my mind was telling me that I was going to end up fat again. And if I was fat, I would be miserable and alone.

It’s not a method I would recommend for anyone and Dr. Trollope-Kumar agrees: “There are many reasons why (boys and men) might have developed this because people with eating disorders often have a lot of shame,” she says. “They feel like, ‘why am I doing this to myself? I should just snap out of it. I should just eat properly.’ And that’s often the message they’re getting from people around them. ‘Just eat!’ And this is not helpful.”

Instead, she recommends that boys and men educate themselves on eating disorders and understand them so that they can see that what they’re going through is not their fault. “It’s often good to start off with some kind of community-based organization like Body Brave,” she advises. “Most cities around in Canada have some kind of community-based support organization.”

If you also have a primary care provider, let them know what’s going on, recommends Dr. Trollope-Kumar. “[The primary caregiver] can start seeing the person regularly, maybe once a month or once every two months, keep an eye on the weight, keep an eye on the blood pressure and the pulse, because any eating disorder can be quite dangerous.”

Photo by Noah Silliman

Can Anorexia Be Prevented? 

If you’re a parent who has a child struggling with an eating disorder, you may be wondering if there was something you could have done to prevent it. Well, the answer is complicated. The short answer is: Not really.

“[What] a lot of people don’t understand about eating disorders is there’s a very strong genetic component to it,” Dr. Trollope-Kumar says. “If the person has a family history of an eating disorder or a family history of a major mental illness…those people are born with some genes that make them a bit more susceptible to an eating disorder. So obviously you can’t prevent that.”

However, you can still play a role in helping your child according to Dr. Trollope-Kumar. Keeping the lines of communication open for your child and offering love and support is key.

Non-Stop Healing

It’s been 24 years since my active struggle with anorexia. Though there’s been some distance, I still feel it there, lingering like some withered, old plant that refuses to die. 

 I’ve done a lot of work on myself since then, being able to recognize triggers and developing a better understanding of myself and how I work. I no longer look at food as the enemy, but as one of the many joys of life. I talk openly about my struggles as opposed to hiding them. For me, that’s important. Things like anorexia can thrive in the dark, especially for boys and men. It’s up to us to ruin it in light.

If you or someone you love is struggling with an eating disorder, know you’re not alone. Here are some resources to get you started:

• Body Brave – a community-based charitable organization offering virtual support to those impacted by eating disorders and disordered eating.
• National Disordered Eating Information Centre – Canada’s source for eating disorder education and support.
• National Initiatives for Eating Disorders – A site to give hope and support to individuals with an eating disorder and their caregivers.

Dr. Karen Trollope-Kumar is the Chief Medical Officer at Body Brave. For more information about BodyBrave, visit bodybrave.ca