Student’s Guidance to Ensure Men with Eating Disorders don’t Feel Alienated from Seeking Help

A University of Worcester student has created bespoke guidance to help ensure that men with eating disorders feel able to engage with the support they need.

George Mycock, who himself experienced eating disorders and body image concerns for over a decade, developed the guidance to help charities and health services when designing marketing materials, such as leaflets and posters, to ensure they do not unconsciously exclude or alienate men, and even seek their input.

George believes this is the first time that such a resource has been published in the UK, produced in consultation with and co-designed by men with lived experience of such conditions.

George, 29, of Malvern, who produced the guidance as part of his PhD in Sport and Exercise Science, said. “I hope that the perspective can shift from ‘men don’t access care because men don’t want it and don’t want to speak about their feelings’ to something more constructive. Maybe that’s the case, but there are also some things that we could be doing as organisations, as researchers, as clinicians and people providing that care to support them. There is a responsibility of healthcare providers to meet men where they’re at to some degree and utilise strategies to reach out to men and make this care seem more engaging and enticing for them.”

George’s guidance has been taken up by REDCAN (Regional Eating Disorders Charities Network and Alliance), an alliance of regional eating disorders charities across the UK, who are distributing it to their member charities.

The idea for this work came after George reviewed existing research that focused on men’s reluctance to seek help. He said there were “reports from men saying that related healthcare services feel like they’re not made for them and the services feel unwelcoming”.

George pursued this, looked at the existing content and noticed a trend. “The websites, the leaflets and posters, and social media were overwhelmingly feminine. They mostly contained pictures of women and gave out textual information that applies only to female anatomy. So immediately it excludes them [men], on top of a lot of societal concerns that men report, which revolve around the perception that it is a ‘woman’s illness’, that eating disorders are something that only women get, and somehow, they’re more feminine [for having an eating disorder]. You’ve already got that stigma and the public-facing information immediately leans into that.”

George surveyed a large group of men then held intensive sessions and focus groups with a select group who have all experienced or are experiencing an eating disorder or body image disorder. From this, George designed, in consultation with them, the guidance to inform the design of inclusive materials for men.

He added: “I hope that services also use this guidance as a foundation to have discussions with men in their local areas or who are already accessing their services on how they could make their service more welcoming and more engaging for men because of the unique social concerns that seem to influence men’s experiences.”

The guidance is now available on George’s own website.