Gym bros are big on TikTok but some struggle with orthorexia
No butter. No food after 6pm Everything must be measured. Every macro is recorded. If you don’t ask for a break, then you aren’t trying as hard as you can.
These are the rules often recommended by gym bros today.
They’re also incredibly readable and relegated to the toxic corners of the Internet in the early 2010s. Those posts, which took over Tumblr and Pinterest, were banned and criticized for promoting unhealthy eating. But some say today’s fitness entrepreneurs are sharing the same issues and hiding in plain sight — or maybe not hiding at all.
On TikTok, many fitness enthusiasts gather followers by sharing their hard-to-achieve bodies and details of their fitness journeys. But among the motivational videos there is no shortage of clips that promote extreme «clean eating», skipping meals and excessive exercise. Experts say this contributes to the culture of orthorexia, a little-known eating disorder that plagues the fitness community.
What is a ‘gym bro’?
«Gym bros» are those who actually live and breathe the gym. In some cases, their fitness goals can lead to unhealthy behaviors, a pitfall that has been well-documented as of late.
Instead of longing for thigh gaps, men look to online bodybuilders for inspiration, sometimes resorting to dangerous methods to achieve hard-to-reach fitness goals.
Unhealthy behaviors can include only eating «safe foods,» dieting for weight loss or exercising excessively to the point of injury.
What is ‘orthorexia’?
Being fit and eating a healthy diet has many benefits for physical and mental health, but when taken to extremes, people often don’t realize they may have and an undiagnosed eating disorder called «orthorexia.»
Orthorexia is a clean, healthy diet that causes a person to feel guilty and ashamed if they deviate from their strict diet. Because of its restrictive nature, this disease actually has many physical effects like anorexia, including malnutrition, heart failure, inattention, lowering sex hormones, kidney failure and even death.
Often, men may not have the information to understand that they have an eating disorder, according to expert and certified eating disorder specialist Sarah Davis.
«The culture of health manifests itself in a toxic way like orthorexia,» Davis says. «In the gym, there’s a lot of that kind of talk about clean food. Some food is demonic and it’s all about building muscle. It’s been shown this way there. placed on a pedestal.»
Because of the stigma surrounding male eating disorders and the cultural acceptance surrounding this toxic behavior, some men will not seek help even when they realize they have a problem.
Body dysmorphia and exercise culture
Health coach and personal trainer Noah Sage Zimmerman, 30, struggled with body dysmorphia for years before entering the workforce.
Growing up in Santa Barbara, she was surrounded by “rich, good-looking families” and felt pressured to look and eat a certain way to fit in. the basic belief that worthiness was the key to being loved.
After college, he began working with a nutritionist to manage his ulcerative colitis. But Zimmerman began eating unhealthy habits in a healthy way.
«I had to eat very clean for 90 percent of the week, and then once a week I would eat whatever I wanted,» she says. «I just started like, three to five different restaurants for that meal and then I eat a lot of disgusting food at the same time.»
Zimmerman would go to the gym four to five hours a day to «feed» his eating habits and skip lunch meetings, cocktail hours and networking events. .
He says: «It was three or four years ago when I was like, there is a problem here. His relationship with food had become as bad, if not worse, than in his teenage years.
As he overeats and overexercises, Zimmerman’s social life and mental health suffer greatly.
He says: “I knew it was bad, because I was not only doing bad things to my body, but I was also doing bad things to my brain by taking life experiences.
Now, she uses her platform to share safe ways to work out for a healthy lifestyle and talk about body dysmorphia. But in his videos, toxic comments are flooding in. «Stop complaining about standards and build the body you want,» one user wrote. Another replied: «The weakness of the body is the lack of intellectual wisdom, and the lack of mental discipline.
Zimmerman isn’t the only one to publicize her body dysmorphia. But on TikTok, some bodybuilders who post about body dysmorphia paint it as a social norm.
Steroids, Ozempic and viral transformation videos
What’s the best way to combat misinformation about fitness culture? Zimmerman says that for starters, it would help if celebrities and influencers disclosed their use of steroids or weight-loss drugs like Ozempic.
«A lot of young children see these people and they may trust them,» he says. «I think we wouldn’t have such a big problem if they were honest about how they access their bodies.»
Those viral weight-loss videos can also be dangerous, experts say. A simple search on TikTok for «trust the crowd» will lead users to thousands of transformation videos, many of which explain how they got into great shape through binge/purging and extreme exercise.
When regular exercisers don’t see the same results, body dysmorphia and disordered eating patterns can get worse, according to Davis.
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The pressure to be ‘big and strong’
Although women’s beauty standards prioritize small bodies, there is still shame associated with being «too thin.» But in gym bro culture, these extremes are reinforced by physical standards for men – there is no such thing as being «too strong» for a man.
Eating disorder recovery advocate William Hornby says toxic masculinity and the media play an important role in this mindset.
«Straight men tend to blame this idea of beauty on women’s expectations but that’s really not true,» says Hornby. «Of course (it comes from) the implementation of masculinity in other men.»
Zimmerman admits: «In the end, most people realize how ripped off they are by other men.»
From the superhero movies young men watch to the magazines they read, being «big and strong» is also equated with success, admiration and even «saving the world.»
«Turn on your phone, watch any kind of movie, any kind of TV show, you’ll see examples of unrealistic values that people are told to aspire to,» Zimmerman says. «You expect, ‘Now that I look a certain way, all these women are going to see me, just like they do in the movies.’ And that’s not the case at all.»
To solve the problem
Fitness culture is incredibly competitive, and for many it can easily get out of hand. Reports like Zimmerman’s and Hornby’s are growing and helping to combat some of these issues.
Davis says there are clear ways to know you have a problem, and getting the word out is key. If you’re missing social engagements because of your fitness goals, that’s a good sign that things are out of control.
Any extreme measures a person takes, whether with an eating disorder or at the gym, «is not a healthy plan,» Hornby says. “It is the pursuit of beauty. And beauty doesn’t make you better equipped to deal with illness. «
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