17: Teen Boys, TikTok, and Bigorexia

Today I'm talking with Dr. Scott Griffiths. Scott is a senior lecturer in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He leads the Physical Appearance Research Team, a multidisciplinary group of researchers and health professionals who investigate body image, appearance related stigmas and discrimination, appearance enhancing substances, appearance enhancement and appearance related psychological disorders such as eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder.I wanted to talk to Scott about the phenomenon of muscle dysmorphia, a disorder that sits somewhere between a body dysmorphic disorder and an eating disorder that tends to impact cis boys and men. It's sometimes characterised as the male anorexia. Of course cis boys and men get anorexia too, but muscle dysmorphia is a bit different. It's sometimes known as Bigorexia. It's when an individual doesn't believe that they're big enough or sufficiently muscular to the point that they devote their lives to gains and progress in the gym. They might follow extremely strict diets which prioritise protein and cut out a lot of carbohydrates, and in some cases men can turn to using anabolic steroids, which have some really serious long-term effects for both physical and mental health as you'll hear us talking about. A lot of Scott's research is about the ways that social media, and particularly TikTok feeds people who are vulnerable to eating disorders or muscle dysmorphia, more and more content that upholds unrealistic body and image based ideals, and actually fuels eating disorders.It's really interesting research to hear about, but as a parent and as someone who works with eating disorders, it's really terrifying.Find out more about Scott’s work here.Follow his work on Twitter here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to my newsletter here.Here’s the transcript in full:Scott: When you're on your feed and TikTok is delivering videos for you to consume, all of the reference points you are getting from content that it’s popular and influential and that people are responding to it. It's so divorced from reality that you've got a greater pool of people comparing and feeling poorly about themselves and now investing in the general necessity of looking better.INTROLaura: Hey, and welcome to Can I Have Another Snack? I'm Laura Thomas, an anti-diet, registered nutritionist, and author of the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter. We're having conversations about how we nourish ourselves and our kids in all senses of the word in the hellscape that is diet culture.Today I'm talking with Dr. Scott Griffiths. Scott is a senior lecturer in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He leads the Physical Appearance Research Team, a multidisciplinary group of researchers and health professionals who investigate body image, appearance related stigmas and discrimination, appearance enhancing substances, appearance enhancement and appearance related psychological disorders such as eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder.I wanted to talk to Scott about the phenomenon of muscle dysmorphia, a disorder that sits somewhere between a body dysmorphic disorder and an eating disorder that tends to impact cis boys and men. It's sometimes characterized as the male anorexia, which of course cis boys and men get anorexia too. But muscle dysmorphia is a bit different. It's sometimes known as bigorexia. It's when an individual doesn't believe that they're big enough or sufficiently muscular to the point that they devote their lives to gains and progress in the gym. They might follow extremely strict diets which prioritize protein and cut out a lot of carbohydrates. And in some cases men can turn to using anabolic steroids, which have some really serious long-term effects for both physical and mental health as you'll hear us talking about. A lot of Scott's research is about the ways that social media, and particularly TikTok feeds people who are vulnerable to eating disorders or muscle dysmorphia, more and more content that upholds unrealistic body and image based ideals and actually fuels eating disorders.It's really interesting research to hear about, but as a parent and as someone who works with eating disorders, it's. Really terrifying. So you'll notice that this episode has a slightly different vibe to some of the other episodes this season. I'm asking Scott more about his research on muscle dysmorphia rather than his, you know, personal story. And I'm curious to hear what you think of this episode and get some feedback from you as to whether you'd like more interviews with academics, researchers and practitioners with a particular kind of expertise or on a particular topic like this, in addition to hearing people's lived experience. So if you want, you can drop me a comment over on Substack underneath this episode, um, which you can find at laurathomas.substack.com.And while I have you here, just a reminder that Can I Have Another...