posted July 11, 2000 01:51 PM         

http://cbshealthwatch.health.aol.com/

When you get there type bigorexia in the quick search.

posted July 11, 2000 02:22 PM            

Bigorexia: Men Have Bad Body Images, Too
Debbie Carvalko, Medical Writer
Most guys would envy Don Williams's body, if they (or anyone else) could see it.

The 29-year-old personal trainer/bodybuilder has a 54-inch chest, 31-inch waist, and 29-inch quads. He stands 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighs 235 pounds, and boasts only 9% body fat. But don't look for him to be showboating that body.

Williams is consistently clad in baggy sweatshirts and loose pants. "You see me covered up all the time," he says, nodding. And it's not because he's cold.

It's Williams's off-season from competing. He's only working out at the gym in Shelton, Connecticut, for 2 hours, 5 days a week, instead of 6 or 7 days. His muscles are bulging, but not as much as they could be. "And you visualize yourself as being in perfect condition, so nothing else is good enough. I know hundreds, thousands of people like that," he says.

Dr. Harrison Pope, a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, knows a few, too.

Anorexia's Opposite
Dr. Pope and colleagues studied bodybuilders so preoccupied with getting bigger muscles that their self-image is grossly warped. Some buffed ones are so convinced they are puny that they won't go to the beach. Some skip class reunions, or other social events, so no one will see their bodies and snicker at their (self-perceived) skinniness.

The shame is more widespread in men than people realize.

Others pass up better-paying jobs or relationships with seemingly ideal mates because those things could interfere with their workouts. They ignore injuries, like pulled muscles or torn ligaments, and continue lifting weights. They are compelled to work out for long hours, often 7 days a week. The most desperate try to pump up more by packing in anabolic steroids. The side effects--high cholesterol, hard arteries, and shrunken testicles--don't matter ... at least, not as much as building more muscle.

When Dr. Pope, the lead investigator, reported his findings in a 1997 issue of Psychosomatics, he dubbed the disorder "muscle dysmorphia." It is, essentially, an obsession with being muscular.

Outside scientific circles, it has a simpler name: "bigorexia." Dr. Pope agrees that the condition, which mainly strikes males, is the opposite of anorexia, a usually female disorder. While anorexics starve themselves to skin and bone but still think they look fat, muscle-bound bigorexics are driven to build more and more, believing they look thin.

"It is, by definition, a condition surrounded by shame," Dr. Pope says. And the shame is more widespread in men than people realize. A surprising number of men have body-image disorders and even eating disorders including anorexia, he says. He has coined a phrase to describe what drives them. It's in the title of his book on the subject, set to hit the stores in early June: the Adonis complex.

Obsession Ain't Just Cologne
Before millions of dedicated lifters get hot under their weight belts about his assessment, Dr. Pope wants one thing to be perfectly clear: "I'm not saying there is anything pathological about being a bodybuilder, or working out regularly." In addition to being chief of McLean's Biological Psychiatry Laboratory, Dr. Pope is an exercise enthusiast himself. He hits the gym 6 times a week for 90-minute sessions.
The "pathology" in bodybuilding, exercise, or nearly any other activity, he says, begins when that activity starts interfering with other aspects of life--social, occupational, academic, and, physical health. Dr. Pope's subjects, for example, include a 27-year-old man whose waking hours are "consumed" with thoughts of getting bigger. The man used steroids for 9 years, but despite his "massive muscularity," perceived himself as "small." He refused social invitations, and shunned family members, friends, and women.

The "pathology" in bodybuilding or exercise begins when the activity starts interfering with other aspects of life.

"Probably 10%" of the men in any gym have bigorexia, ranging from mild to "crippling," according to Dr. Pope. It's widespread enough to impress the editors of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, an encyclopedia of disorders and treatments used by psychologists and psychiatrists. The book (revised every 7 years) has a long-standing, general category called "body dysmorphia." As subtext explains, sufferers are obsessed with body parts such as the face, hands, feet, or nose. In the revision due out this summer, an obsession with "muscle or bodybuilding" will be added to the list, says editor Dr. Michael First.

Dr. Pope also found an eyebrow-lifting number of men who said that as teenagers they had a fear of fat and were anorexic. The male bigorexia-anorexia discoveries prompted Dr. Pope's book, which is being published by Free Press: The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsession. He says, "There's a huge amount of stuff out there about body image in women, but it's really underrecognized in men."

Possible Common Cause
Steven Franzoi isn't surprised by Dr. Pope's findings. A social psychologist and professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Franzoi points to the muscle magazines flooding the market. "Here's this masculine body ideal, this fixation on the way the body looks. The more this is depicted in the media, the more likely it is that people are going to try to meet that ideal," he says.
Dr. Pope believes the cause is more internal. He says bigorexics, anorexics, and even people like compulsive handwashers, who soap up 20 or 30 times a day, all share the same root problem: obsessive compulsive disorder.

Back in Connecticut, Jerry Montanari stands behind a desk at Gold's Gym in New Haven, throwing up his hands. "I don't know why they do it," says Montanari, co-owner of the gym that has some 2,000 members. Montanari estimates "one out of every 25" members gets "obsessive."

May.2000
� 2000 by Medscape Inc. All rights reserved.

Debbie Carvalko is a freelance medical writer based in Connecticut.

posted July 11, 2000 04:40 PM            

The reason i started bodybuilding all those years ago i think!

If i lose a pound i wont go out!(apart from the gym)

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***** K A R M A *****
For every ACTION there is a REACTION !

posted July 11, 2000 07:40 PM            

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Lift until u can't...... and then some.

posted July 11, 2000 07:45 PM            

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215LBS of Twisted Steel and Pure Sex Appeal!
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