2. PREVALENCE OF MUSCLE DYSMORPHIA
“Do you
n.s. p>.05
know
anyone
who has
had a
problem
like
Michael’s/
Kelly’s?”
N = 343
Error bars =
95% CIs
3. MALE BODY DISSATISFACTION
Muscle dissatisfaction
(mean scores)
Body fat dissatisfaction
(mean scores)
N = 286
Mean = 3.14
Often to Always =
20%
N = 286
Mean = 2.87
Often to Always =
18%
3
5. ASSOCIATIONS WITH MUSCULARITY-ORIENTED
DISORDERED EATING
Emotion regulation
difficulties
Attentional biases
toward rejecting faces
Cognitive set shifting
difficulties
(Griffiths, Angus, Murray, &Touyz,
under review in Body Image)
(Griffiths, Angus, Murray, &Touyz, unde
r review in Body Image)
(Griffiths, Murray, & Touyz, in press in
Body Image)
MUSCULARITY MUSCULARITY
-ORIENTED
ORIENTED
DISORDERED
DISORDERED
EATING
EATING
Conformity to
masculine norms
Admiration of people with
muscle dysmorphia
(Griffiths, Murray, &Touyz, under review
in Psychology of Men & Masculinity)
(Griffiths, Mond, Murray &Touyz, under review
in International Journal of Eating Disorders)
Body image pathology –
muscle dissatisfaction
AND body fat
dissatisfaction
6. DEFINITIONS, AND A NEW MEASURE OF
MUSCULARITY-ORIENTED DISORDERED EATING
A definition of muscularity-oriented
disordered eating
“Problematic eating attitudes
and behaviours motivated by the
desire to become more
muscular”
(Griffiths, Murray, &Touy
z, 2013, published in
Journal of Eating Disoders)
What makes an eating attitude or
behaviour disordered/problematic?
The attitude or behaviour must be
1. Rule-driven, or
2. Compensatory
6
7. A FRAMEWORK OF MUSCULARITY-ORIENTED
DISORDERED EATING
› A framework of muscularity-oriented disordered eating is not just about
eating and body image.
1.
Body image
2.
Eating
1. Appearance and performance enhancing drugs (APEDs)
- Polypharmacy (Kanayama et al. 2009)
2. Nutritional supplements
- Supplement use predicts positive beliefs about APED safety and efficacy
(Hildebrandt, Harty & Langenbucher, 2012)
3. Compulsive muscle-building exercise (predominantly weightlifting)
7
Editor's Notes
Disordered eating in my field has traditionally been understood to be thinness-oriented, about calorie restriction and fat reduction. Now, it is time to develop a framework of disordered eating surrounding muscularity. However, with male body dissatisfaction as high as it is and with the advent of muscle dysmorphia,
I had 343 male and female undergraduates read a vignette describing a character with anorexia nervosa or muscle dysmorphia named Michael or Kelly. The muscle dysmorphia vignette described a male with an intense fear of losing his muscle mass, and who redoubled his efforts in the gym and with his diet if he found it difficult to control his eating and workouts, and who thought he was scrawny and underweight despite being very muscular with little body fat. Without telling them the diagnosis, I asked them to indicate if they knew anyone who has had a problem like Michael/Kelly.? 343 undergraduates answered this question, meaning there was plenty of power to detect a significant difference in the pattern of responses. However, the differences were not significant, suggesting that people are as familiar with muscularity-focused psychopathology as they are thinness-oriented psychopathology.
Lots of males, especially young males, suffer from body dissatisfaction. In fact, we might be approaching a point at which body dissatisfaction in young men is normative. The blue and red graphs are frequency histograms depicting the mean scores of 286 male psychology undergraduates who completed the Male Body Attitudes Scale for a related but separate study to the one I am presenting today. The blue graph is the frequency histogram for mean scores on the Muscle Dissatisfaction subscale of the Male Body Attitudes Scale, which measures males’ dissatisfaction with their muscularity. Similarly, the body fat dissatisfaction subscale measures dissatisfaction with body fatBoth scales ask participants to rate their level of agreement with statements about the body, such as “I think my arms should be more muscular” or “I think I have too much fat on my body”. Both measures use the 6-point Likert scales at the bottom of each histogram. The mean level of muscle dissatisfaction in these 286 males is 3.14, which corresponds to someone agreeing “sometimes” to “often” with questions such as “I wish my chest was broader” and “I think I have too little muscle mass on my body.” Worryingly, almost 1 in 5 or 20% are, on average, agreeing “often” to “always” with these statements.Body fat concerns appear less marked overall than muscle concerns, but high nonetheless.Thus, amongst University of Sydney psychology graduates at least, muscle dissatisfaction is almost the norm.
This is a modified version of the EDE-Q completed by a young male diagnosed with muscle dysmorphia.
When we discuss disordered eating we rarely refer to just eating behaviours and body image. We often talk about, or measure, laxative use, diuretic use, vomiting, purging and excessive exercise under the umbrella of disordered eating. Similarly, a framework of muscularity-oriented disordered eating
