Eating disorders don't just affect women

WINSTON Hurt used to weigh himself 12 times a day, writes Zahra Borno. The reading on the scales barely used to change from one hour to the next but Winston, now aged 45, of Cowley, was obsessed with knowing what the latest update was.

Winston is one of several men in this country who have suffered from anorexia nervosa.

The disease developed just after he left school and was trying to decide what sort of job he wanted.

Every morning he used to write a list of what he would eat that day. Breakfast was a piece of dry toast, lunch was an apple and a pear and the evening meal was a few carrots and a slice of cheese on toast.

It would give Winston a feeling of achievement if he managed to stick to the list. He would feel even better if he ate less than his alloted ration. He also started chewing gum regularly because he hoped it would burn up a few calories if he kept his jaws on the go all day.

Winston had always been fairly slight as a boy but after just a few months his weight started to drop off his 6ft 1in frame and he was soon down to well under 10st. He says it was a reaction to the stresses of his childhood as well as a way of coping with the fact that he had been sexually-abused by his uncle.

"I would not wish my childhood on anyone. It was a complete nightmare. There was no love in my house. My parents were either rowing or not speaking to each other. It was a bizarre atmosphere for a child to be brought up in.

"When I was abused there was nobody I could turn to for some understanding because everyone was at each other's throats. I got no love or attention and I think that's where the anorexia came in. It started off almost as a hobby, it was something that I could control and couldn't be taken away from me."

Throughout his childhood, food had always created extra tension in the house. "My sister was really fat and was always on a diet. My mum wasn't a very good cook and used to feed us beans on toast or fishfingers. We never had proper meals.

"I used to love school dinners because it was the only time I got decent food. I was always thinking about food because I was hungry.

"I used to eat raw porridge oats mixed with sugar and water just to try and fill myself up. Looking back nobody had a very healthy attitude to food in our house. It seemed almost natural to use it as a means of communication," he says.

Winston's difficult family background made him feel like an outsider at school and he found it difficult to make friends. At the age of 17, in 1972, he decided to join the army in the hope of finding a sense of belonging and identity. His weight was low but he passed the medical and was accepted by a regiment based near Aldershot. But by this stage the anorexia had really taken a grip and he couldn't shake off the feeling of isolation that the disease gave him.

He says: "I felt like I was carrying a secret. All my life I had carried the secret that I had been sexually-abused, the anorexia was just another secret to add to the collection."

The training was rigorous but the physical demands did not bother Winston. He enjoyed pushing his body to the limits and all he could think about when on exercise or doing drill was the number of calories he was burning off.

He spurred himself on to greater and greater heights of physical fitness and kept his rations to a minimum.

His daily diet while training consisted of a slice of marmite on toast for breakfast, two potatoes and a few boiled vegetables for lunch, and then two potatoes for his evening meal.

It was barely enough to keep body and soul together. Government guidelines suggest men eat at least 2,500 calories each day but Winston's daily calorie intake plunged to less than 350. Meal times became an ordeal and Winston would end up watching all the other recruits sitting around him munching their way through mountains of food, piled sky-high on their plates, while he chased his potatoes around the plate.

"Mealtimes were really difficult. The others used to tease me about not eating very much but I think they just thought I was super-fit and able to keep going without needing much energy.

"I never had any mates that I could confide in, and sometimes I used to be bullied.

"I think people could tell that I was different. One day one of the others tipped a pile of pepper on my potatoes as a practical joke.

"It made the food inedible but instead of feeling angry I was really pleased. At least it meant I wouldn't have to eat it," he remembers.

He would also take laxatives in a desperate attempt to lose as much weight as he could.

It is amazing that Winston's body could cope with the demands of his physical training without collapsing under the strain. But nobody noticed how weak he was becoming. "I was practically a skeleton but it obviously didn't cross anyone's mind that I was anorexic.

"There's so little awareness about the fact that men can suffer from it too, especially in a male-dominated environment like the Army.

"The problem was just not recognised. By this time I knew there was something wrong but there was nobody I could turn to."

Winston was in the army for just six months before he discharged himself. He knew he couldn't go on the way he was going and he returned to Cowley for recuperation.

But going home was the worst place for him. The dynamics in the unhappy family home exacerbated the situation and his anorexia, teamed with depression, spiralled out of control. His weight plunged to just 9st. Health experts advise that a safe weight range for men of Winston's height is between 10st 12lb and 13st 5lb.

In 1973 he was admitted to Littlemore Hospital after being diagnosed with anorexia and depression.

"When I was in hospital I would look in a mirror and could see my bones sticking out but I still felt fat and flabby. "I had a pair of maroon trousers and I used them as a measure of how fat I was. They had a tiny waist, of 30ins, but I was so worried about putting on weight and them getting too tight."

After spending four months in hospital Winston felt strong enough to re-join the Army.

So he signed up again, bizarrely as a cook.

"I was like lots of anorexics in that I used to like being around food and preparing it for other people without actually wanting to eat it myself.

"I was still barely eating but I didn't consider myself as being anorexic then. It's strange, but even then I didn't admit I had a problem."

Winston's anorexia stopped al most as suddenly as it started. He took up long distance running and within weeks was clocking up at least 80 miles a week. Soon, he was running marathons.

"When I started running it dawned on me that I would have to eat because otherwise I wouldn't be able to run. I became really quite obsessed with the running.

"I got such a high from it and the buzz that I used to feel when I lost weight was replaced by the running buzz."

Running dominated Winston's life for many years and he compulsively kept entering marathons.

But he couldn't run away from the deep depression which continues to grip him.

He takes anti-depressants each day and is still finding it hard to come to terms with everything that happened to him as a child.

"I'm over the anorexia and eat normally now. I weigh 13st 7lb and I look a big man now, whereas before I used to be so slight, but I think the depression seems almost worse than the anorexia.

"It's awful to say it but I wish I hadn't been born. The amount of suffering I have been through feels like too much for one person to bear."

The facts

Eating disorders are traditionally seen as a female problem with many sufferers being dismissed as neurotic schoolgirls with little else to worry about other than the fact they don't look like Kate Moss.

But the reality is very different.

In fact, people of all ages and both sexes suffer from anorexia and bulima.

Recent research shows that as many as one in ten people who suffer from an eating disorder are male.

That figure rises to a surprising one in four for youngsters under the age of 16.

The motivating force behind the development of anorexia is low self-esteem, which boys can suffer from just as easily as girls.

A lack of self-confidence can stem from other underlying problems, such as sexual or physical abuse, bullying or family break-up.

Some people develop anorexia or bulimia because it gives them a sense of identity and a feeling that they can dominate something in their lives when everything else appears to be beyond their control. Research indicates that about one in five men with eating disorders are gay but reasons for this particularly high statistic are still being researched.

Despite the many similarities there is one major difference in the ways men and women react to disorders.

Anorexia in women tends to manifest itself through severe chronic dieting whereas anorexic men tend to over-exercise to keep their weight down.

Eating disorders expert psychiatrist Dr Debbie Lovell, based at the Warneford Hospital, Oxford, says: "There is a lot of ignorance about male anorexia and this makes it extremely embarrassing for men who suffer from the disorder.

"Even GPs are less aware of male anorexia, seeing it as a female illness, and this can make it extremely difficult for men to access help.

"As with women, the causes of the disorder are extremely diverse but they tend to stem from a lack of self-esteem. Over-exercising, rather than extreme dieting, is much more common among men. "However, the physical symptoms are much the same in men and women as the body ends up running purely on survival levels."

Common physical symptoms include the pulse rate dropping to well below average and the growth of a fine down all over the body.

Sufferers are also constantly lacking in energy, they are always cold and often bruise easily.

The Eating Disorders Association (EDA) has launched its awareness week to raise the profile of disorders, particularly among men.

Spokesman for the EDA, Steve Bloomfield, says: "Male anorexia is an area where we are still doing a lot of research.

"In some cases an eating disorder develops as a result of an interest in athletics and sport being taken to extreme.

"Women sufferers are much more concerned with their body weight whereas men are more interested in body shape and muscle development."

"The problem is that there are a lot of people who do not believe that it's possible for men to develop disorders. Cultural expectations therefore make it harder for men to accept they have a disorder."

Story date: Thursday 17 February

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.