#23: What about boys?

with Stuart B. Murray, DClinPsych, PhD and Jason Nagata, MD, MSc

listen here

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In this episode we discuss…

  • dr. murray and Dr. nagata’s backgrounds, and how they came to specialize in male body image and eating disorders

  • the lack of treatment guidelines specifically for male eating disorders

  • appearance ideals for men, and how their idealized body image differs from the “thin ideal” generally understood for women

  • research findings on the drive to increase muscularity, lose body fat, and get more “ripped”

  • the theory of threatened masculinity and possible explanations for increasingly unattainable appearance ideals for men

  • why male eating disorders are an under-studied “enigma” and often under-diagnosed

  • why eating disorders in men and boys are often more severe by the time they seek treatment

  • how disordered eating manifests for boys and men - and how it can differ from recognizable weight-loss driven behavior

  • swinging between the drive for leanness and for muscularity

  • over-regulation of food versus restriction of food

  • the impact of social media on male eating disorders

  • internalized objectification for men

  • the challenge of identifying the line between “disordered” and “normal” behavior

  • the dangers of biohacking and intermittent fasting

  • the challenges of vulnerability and expressing body image concerns for boys and men

  • jason and stuart’s answers to the million dollar question

Dr. Stuart Murray and Dr. Jason Nagata join us for a conversation about how body image concerns and eating disorders impact boys. We discuss appearance ideals for males, and how this leads disordered eating to manifest differently in this population - and often go unrecognized.

Get our guide to body-positive parenting, including the page for this podcast episode.

 

Stuart B. Murray, DClinPsych, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of eating disorders in the Department of Psychiatry and Weill Institute for Neurosciences at the University of California, San Francisco. He received his doctorate and Ph.D. from the University of Sydney, and completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California, San Diego. His NIMH-funded program of research focuses on male eating disorders and muscularity-oriented disordered eating, and on identifying translational mechanisms underpinning eating disorder psychopathology more broadly. To date, he has published more than 130 scientific manuscripts, and serves on the Editorial Board of 5 leading journals.

Connect with Dr. Murray on his website and Twitter.

Jason Nagata, MD, MSc, is a physician specializing in the medical management of adolescent and young adult eating disorders in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. He received his BA in Health and Societies from the University of Pennsylvania, MSc in Medical Anthropology from the University of Oxford, MD from the University of California, San Francisco, and completed his pediatrics residency at Stanford University. His research interests include eating disorders in understudied populations including males, sexual and gender minorities, and atypical anorexia nervosa. His research has been published in The Lancet, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the International Journal of Eating Disorders. He is the Co-Chair of the Young Professionals Network of the International Association for Adolescent Health and a member of the Board of Directors for the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine.

Connect with Dr. Nagata on his website and Twitter.

XJordan Best