Posted on October 08, 2015 by Jenny Cromack
Bigorexia: Searching for Size
What is Bigorexia?
Bigorexia or reverse anorexia is clinically known as Muscle Dysmorphia (MD). It is a condition that causes individuals to perceive themselves as being insufficiently muscular. However, many of the individuals who show signs of Bigorexia are often highly developed but fail to recognise their levels of muscularity and are overpowered by feelings of inadequacy. This is a condition that traditionally affects 1 in 10 men, but more and more women are showing symptoms of MD. The physical characteristics that are associated with MD are very unclear but individuals who develop the condition appear to have an unhealthy obsession with exercise and diet. Individuals tend to engage in frequent weight training, meticulous nutritional habits, and often take regular nutritional supplementation.
What makes it a “condition”?
MD is not simply a love for weight training it is an obsession or preoccupation with wanting to be more muscular that becomes pathological. Thoughts of being more muscular and weight training dominate the thoughts of those with Bigorexia. Individuals tend to spend 3 or more hours a day thinking about muscularity, training, and diet. Mirror checking and critiquing levels of muscularity and physique is a common behaviour that fills the day of muscle dysmorphic people.
There is a perceived need to exercise in order to develop their muscularity which becomes pathological and starts to disrupt others areas of their lives. Cases studies have demonstrated that individuals will put training over work and occupational activities and they will turn up late or leave early in order to train. . If a training session is missed it is often met with feelings of anger, frustration, or a fear of losing what they have achieved. Of more concern to health is that individuals will train through pain and serious illness or injury because being muscular is so high up in their priorities.
As well as occupational life their social lives are hugely affected by both exercise and diet. They will often refuse to attend social activities and place training and their regimented diet over these events. It is common for people to refuse to eat out through a fear of not knowing how food is prepared or the exact nutritional content. This reflects the detail individuals go into with their nutrition often displaying binge like eating patterns, high protein diets, and scrupulous structuring of meals. To aid nutrition people with MD will often ingest a wide range of nutritional supplementation. This can sometimes lead to more extreme, pharmacological agents such as steroids.
How does it occur?
This is the one million pound question that has yet to be thoroughly answered. Many potential theories may contribute with one of these being the sociocultural theory. This theory suggests that the media plays a huge role in influence individuals. The media tends to portray strong and muscular ideals and these ideals are sold as being desired by society. Over the last three decades male magazine models have gained 25lbs of muscle and dropped 12lbs of fat. This highlights the increasing levels of muscularity that individuals are exposed to, which may then influence the perceptions men have about their bodies and how they feel they should look.
A second theory that may fit the development of MD is the social comparison theory which suggests that comparing ourselves to others has the ability to change our perceptions of ourselves. If we are surrounded by increasingly strong, and muscular individuals in society, such as in gyms, we have more opportunity to compare ourselves to these individuals. This may then cause us to strive to achieve the muscular physiques that we are comparing ourselves to.
In combination if we are reading magazines, watching movies, and observing highly muscular ideals in the media and our general lives and society it is likely that we will question the way we look in comparison. This may be one reason why more men are developing Bigorexia and muscularity concerns but more research is needed into its development.
What are the consequences?
The development of Bigorexia can have many psychological and emotional effects on the individual. MD has been linked to social physique anxiety which means individuals will hide their body and avoid exposing their physique to other through a fear of being evaluated. Similarly, individuals with MD tend to have a lower self-esteem and higher levels of depression. The effort and focus on diet often resembles the characteristics of eating disorders and some can display symptoms of bulimia. Many other variables have been linked to MD but research is still very scarce in this area. Other variables with potential links are general body dissatisfaction, perfectionism, and OCD characteristics.
Bigorexia is something that is very new and many people don’t understand but life for these individuals can be very hard and they experience a great deal of distress. It is therefore very important that we emphasise to ourselves and others that not everything in the media is as it appears and also that not every person shares the same ability to look the a certain way. Until more research is completed it is hard to suggest ways of coping or preventing this condition but we can help by making sure individuals are training and eating safely in their search for health and fitness goals.