Skinny mannequins raise eating disorder fears
21/05/10
The Priory Group, the UK's leading provider of acute mental health services, believes the impending launch of mannequins with 27 inch waists could adversely affect young Scottish men with body image problems.
Next month Rootstein, a British firm, will unveil its Young and Restless collection, which includes a male mannequin with a 35 inch chest and a 27 inch waist - 11 inches smaller than the average British male.
The Priory's experts say cultural and lifestyle pressures to have 'the perfect body' are already resulting in more young men coming forward for treatment for bulimia and anorexia.
Dr Alex Yellowlees, Medical Director of the Priory Hospital Glasgow, said: "There is increasing pressure in today's society to conform to an idealisation of thinness, which is particularly perpetrated by images in the fashion world.
"These mannequins have the potential to increase the intense cultural pressure on men to strive after the perfect body by fuelling any insecurities they may have about their body size."
Dr Yellowlees says men are beginning to adopt unrealistic ideals about thinness and body shape, previously held by women alone, and are, therefore, beginning to use eating disorder behaviours such as extreme dieting, obsessive over exercising, self-induced vomiting, and taking diet pills and laxatives to try to lose weight.
Eating disorders are essentially psychological issues, according to Dr Yellowlees.
He added: "A young person with an eating disorder has a distorted perception about how they look. They see themselves as much fatter than they are when they look in a mirror.
"These unrealistic, overly-thin mannequins have the potential to have a detrimental effect on vulnerable young men's low self-esteem and feelings of inadequacies about their looks and body size."
Dr Yellowlees added: "Young people, as they grow up and strive to develop their own identity and build-up self esteem and confidence can be susceptible to trying to conform to images of how society portrays people's size.
"Anorexia or bulimia is not the answer to overcoming feelings of low self-worth and esteem - that is why it is important to treat eating disorders on a number of levels; psychologically, physically, and behaviourally and to help the person build genuine self and body- esteem."
In addition to accepting patients on a private basis, 70% of Priory patients are referred direct from NHS doctors.
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