Revealed: Male stars’ struggles with eating disorders

Bulimia doesn’t get much billing in media column spaces. Anorexia often gets the lion’s share of attention, in part, because it’s seen as the more “glamorous” of the two eating disorders. Eating disorders are also still commonly perceived as a “woman’s disease,” or rather, a “girl’s disease” (eating disorders are most common in adolescents, but they can develop at any age and increasing numbers of adult-onset cases are now being reported). So, when a man admits to an eating disorder, especially a man of some notoriety and fame, it usually makes headlines, even when its a case of bulimia, but especially when its anorexia.

Recently, former British deputy prime minister John Prescott revealed his experiences with bulimia. Now other celebrities have stepped forward defying yet again our assumptions of eating disorders, and who develops them. Marlon Brando’s longtime personal assistant has penned a new book, “Me and Marlon,” in which she claims that the Godfather star battled bulimia during the height of his success. Alice Marchak says she discovered the disorder after finding the film legend passed out once in the bathroom. Brando died in 2004 at the age of 80.

One of the U.K.s rising indie rock stars has also admitted to battling anorexia as a teen. Kings of Leon frontman Caleb Followill recently discussed his grueling exercise regimes and coffee diet in an interview with Q magazine. Guardian music blogger Priya Elan used Fallowill’s admission as a vehicle for a larger discussion of what she(?) calls they “the elephant in the room of indie.”

There’s a premium on looking a certain way in indie rock; and that’s as skinny as an American Apparel model. Kaiser Chiefs singer Ricky Wilson has been at the receiving end of barbs about his weight, while the ugly reaction to Beth Ditto naked on the cover of NME shows that body fascism is alive and well in indie.

Richey Edwards and Kurt Cobain famously had issues of body dysmorphia and anorexia. And I’m sure I’m not the only one to be taken aback by recent press shots of a gaunt looking Brandon Flowers. It can surely only be a good thing that Caleb has highlighted this serious, and too often ignored, issue.

For more on non-traditional people with eating disorders, check out the resources listed in this recent post on www.the-f-word.org.

Cross-posted on www.the-f-word.org