Body image lessons to help stem increasing numbers of teen boys using steroids and over-exercising
TEENAGE boys will be taught how to deal with body image issues, as a growing number of young men over-exercise and resort to steroids to build up their muscles.
NSW
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TEENAGE boys will be taught how to deal with body image issues, as a growing number of young men over-exercise and resort to steroids to build up their muscles.
The Butterfly Foundation will today launch a new school program to tackle the misconception that body image problems are “just a girl thing”.
There is growing concern about the extreme measures some young men take to build muscle, with national needle injection clinics data showing performance enhancing drugs are among the most popular with new users. Physiotherapists also report a rise in teen boys with back and shoulder injuries from over-exercising.
Body image academic Dr Scott Griffiths helped the Butterfly Foundation, Australia’s peak organisation for eating disorders, develop the program for boys aged 13-18.
Dr Griffiths 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.
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“Muscle dysmorphia is a body image disorder, you can think of it as a reverse anorexia,” he 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 CEO 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. She said it would also bust the notion that over-exercising was normal behaviour for boys.
“What we have to do (is) 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 latest Butterfly Foundation research shows 90 per cent of adolescent boys say they exercise primarily to gain muscle, while two-thirds have made specific changes to their diet to gain muscle.
A quarter of people with anorexia and bulimia are male, while almost an equal number of males and females experience a binge eating disorder.
The RESET program features real stories from teenagers, including Mitch Doyle, 27, who was diagnosed with anorexia when he was just 11 and said body image struggles are “not a gendered thing”.
“I felt very lonely because I had no one to be like ‘Oh you’re a guy going through this too’,” Mr Doyle, who has now recovered, said.
Personal trainer Alex Ritchie said many of the young men he saw were looking to get “big” as quickly as possible, without considering what was the healthiest approach.
“They want to go for the full buff look — my approach is to show them a whole-of-health view,” he said, adding he had learned from experience by over-exercising as a teen.
Mr Ritchie said becoming involved in the fitness industry taught him the importance of a balanced approach.
Butterfly Foundation: 1800 33 4673