Why isn’t overeating an eating disorder?
My very first peer-reviewed manuscript was back in the early 2000’s, and wasn’t a study. It was a discussion paper comparing anorexia nervosa to a new proposed psychiatric disorder which was to be named, “Muscle Dysmorphia”. This proposed disorder was popularized by the book, “The Adonis Complex” in which the authors suggested that an emergent pattern of disordered thinking was becoming more prevalent amongst men. This disordered thinking was defined as the preoccupation that one was not muscular enough, and manifested itself in obsessive-compulsive-like behaviour (e.g. compulsion to go to the gym, or significant distress when one was not able to go to the gym) as well as possible self-harming behaviours, such as not participating in social activities because of one’s workout or diet routine, or use of anabolic or other performance-enhancing drugs for the purposes of getting more muscular (I’m not going to debate whether taking anabolic steroids is considered “self-harm” behaviour; it is, however, an example of such in the proposed criteria.)
My position on the proposed “Muscle Dysmorphia” remains unchanged. I do not feel it belongs in the DSM in its current state, largely due to the subjective criteria for its proposed diagnostic criteria, which depends entirely on whether the diagnostician feels the patient is already “muscular enough”. Read More...