Binge Eating Disorder and Men – Breaking the Silence

In this blog, Lived Experience Advocate Wade shares his journey with binge eating disorder, and how lack of awareness can delay help-seeking for men.

I began sucking in my gut at only thirteen years old and didn’t stop for twenty years. I buried the shame and anger of unwanted comments about my body and appearance and convinced myself that fitness influencers promising impossible transformations were the solution. They weren’t. This was the start of my journey with binge eating disorder.

Initially, it didn’t feel like there was a ‘problem’. Although my perception of past experiences is only clearer now that I am in recovery. For a long time, there was persistent feelings of self-doubt, anger, shame, and distorted self-perception. And the thing I most consistently ignored was the exhaustion.

Here is my past binge cycle

I stand on the scales first thing in the morning, every morning. I’m already ignoring my hunger and thirst cues. I look down and see the number. It’s higher than yesterday. The day feels lost.

I plan the calories. Calculate the macros. Adjust the numbers down to compensate. Weigh every ingredient. Continue to ignore the hunger, the lethargy. Still fasting. When the fast finally ends, I eat. Too fast. A little more than planned. Full. Ashamed. One meal and my ‘goals’ are probably ruined. I want that treat from the cupboard, except I can’t. Now I feel worse.

That shame compounds with the misery I feel from looking at the scales. Time to ‘extinguish’ these feelings with comfort food. I tell myself it’s just one ‘day off’. It won’t make a difference. It’s time to go shopping.

I eat a very large amount of food within a short period of time. There is a rock in my stomach. Movement isn’t an option. It’s okay. I’ll go for that run tomorrow.

It’s dinner time, but I am still full. I want to eat as much as possible before tomorrow, when the diet starts again. So, I compound that fullness and go to bed. Before I do, I look in the mirror. I scold myself. Not something to carry into sleep. Not that sleep comes easily anyway.

I wake up in the morning. I stand on the scales. That number is higher. And the cycle continues.

Weight cycling and appearance comments

It didn’t start with the scales. It started much earlier than that.

Throughout childhood I heard constantly that I was getting bigger. I remember being compared to the man on the cover of a Fat Boy Slim album. A friend’s father called me a piggy when I ate snacks at their house.

In year seven, during swimming classes, a group of girls chanted at me. “Wade sucks his gut in.” Did I? Yes. That stomach stayed sucked in for a long time.

During Covid I lost weight. The influencers made it look simple.  ‘Easy’ transformations. Eat this, avoid that, train like this, to look like them. I tried it all. When I hit the goal and heard positive comments about my appearance, the ego boost was nice, but shallow. It was just another judgement on my body. I look back at those before and after photos, the real ones that no one on earth has seen, and don’t recognise myself. I looked tired.

It’s exhausting.

I couldn’t tell you where or when I first heard that eating disorders were a girl’s problem. There’s no single moment. It was simply the consensus I grew up around. It may not have always been stated outright, but it was reinforced constantly, that men expressing problems wasn’t something you did. Suck it up. Man up. Those aren’t real problems. The message was clear, even if no one said it directly.

What I needed was to hear another man, any age, anywhere, name what I was going through. Just one voice saying, “This happened to me too”.

Instead, the silence confirmed what I already feared. So, I continued with silence.

My entire life people have told me I would be a beast, a unit, shredded, if I ‘just hit the gym’. I don’t look like the kind of man people associate with an eating disorder. I have been mistaken for the sports enthusiast jock. I’m more reader, writer type. But disordered eating does not care who you are. It reaches across any age, background, body type, or identity. I’m proof of that.

I finally mentioned the depression and binge eating to my GP. She pointed me toward an Accredited Practising Dietitian who specialises in disordered eating. I didn’t even know that profession existed. I expected a meal plan, something structured to track and control. What I got instead was someone who listened. Who reflected back to me the language I used about myself, about food, about my body, language I didn’t realise was harmful. We got to the root causes. We removed the labels of ‘good food’ and ‘bad food’. I learned that listening intuitively to my body was a skill I had to relearn, because I had buried it so far down, I’d forgotten it was there. That one referral, from a ten-minute conversation with my GP, changed the direction of my life.

Now my days are simpler. Eat when hungry. Stop when full. Enjoy all the foods. Move when the body has energy to do so. When I look in the mirror there is no judgment. A child, years of shift work, life … and still, that most profound exhaustion I ever felt, is finally gone.

If anything here has resonated, if even a hint of it feels familiar, whether about yourself or someone you know, please talk about it. Spark that conversation. With a friend, a family member, a GP, a therapist, or Butterfly Foundation. That ten minutes could change everything. For you, or for the men in your life who haven’t found the words yet. Spot your mate. Start the conversation.

About the Author

Wade is a Biosecurity Officer, a self-published author, a husband of seventeen years, and a father to a two-year-old. He doesn’t have letters after his name or a clinical background. And that’s exactly the point. Disordered eating doesn’t reserve itself for a particular type of person. Wade shares his story in the hope that another ordinary bloke might read it, recognise himself, and finally reach out.

Spot Your Mate

Eating disorders are one of Australia’s largest unrecognised men’s health issues – and we need to talk about it. For more resources, information and support for men and boys living with eating disorders or body dissatisfaction, visit www.butterfly.org.au/spotyourmate

Get Support

If you’re struggling with an eating disorder, disordered eating or body image concerns, please know that help is available. For confidential and free counselling, call the Butterfly National Helpline on 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673) or chat online or email, 7 days a week, 8am-midnight (AEST/AEDT).