It’s a growing problem that’s long been overlooked.
For decades, body image issues have been pegged as primarily a female struggle, with one study finding that 53% of American girls are “unhappy with their bodies” by age 13.
Now, experts say the epidemic is increasingly reaching boys and young men — and while their female peers usually want to shrink, these guys often want to get bigger, stronger and more jacked, sometimes to the extreme.
In boys, a negative body image often stems from the feeling that they aren’t muscular enough, according to Dr. Jason Nagata, an eating-disorder researcher at UC San Francisco.
For some, that mindset spirals into an obsession with shedding fat and packing on muscle, a fixation known as “bigorexia,” or muscle dysmorphia.
“It occurs when someone is preoccupied or even obsessed with the idea that they don’t have enough muscularity,” Nagata told NPR. “In many cases, an individual’s build is actually normal or even objectively muscular.”
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