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‘It’s always an uphill battle’: More young boys are facing body image disorders

Deborah Knight
Article image for ‘It’s always an uphill battle’: More young boys are facing body image disorders

With the rise of health bloggers and social media influencers, you’d think women would be facing more body image pressures.

And while that may be the case, more boys are coming forward with body image issues of their own.

Instead of pressure to be thin, young men are faced with an unrealistic expectation to be big and build muscle at all costs.

To combat the problem, The Butterfly Foundation has launched Reset – a program educating young boys about how to cope with body image pressures.

Mitch Doyle was 11 when he was diagnosed with anorexia and he tells Deborah Knight “it was an incredibly young age to experience such harrowing self-doubt… over the way that I looked”.

“This was before the rise of social media at that age,  but I think in today’s world, it’s a very media-dense and image-based culture.”

The 27-year-old says what makes it harder is beauty and fitness companies constantly changing how they sell their image of beauty.

“So it’s always an uphill battle that you’re never going to reach the top of.”

Mitch tells Deborah the program is about “resetting the conversation around body image and eating disorders to let young boys know…. that this issue is not just affecting teenage girls.”

Click PLAY below to hear the full interview 

For more information about Reset and the Butterfly Foundation, click HERE

Deborah Knight
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