Male Eating Disorders

Dr Philippe Jacquet holds a Doctorate of Professional Practice specifically on male eating disorders. He is, as far as is known, the only clinician in Europe to have completed doctoral-level research on this subject — and he is himself in long-term recovery from an eating disorder.

Both of these facts matter. They point to a clinical problem that shapes everything else on this page: male eating disorders are chronically under-researched, systematically under-diagnosed, and almost never spoken about openly by the men who experience them. The result is that men with eating disorders spend years — sometimes decades — undiagnosed, in distress, and without access to clinical help that understands their specific situation.

This practice exists, in part, to change that.

How common are eating disorders in men?

Research consistently shows that men represent approximately one third of all eating disorder cases — yet they account for a fraction of treatment referrals. A 2025 global burden of disease study found that the eating disorder burden is increasing more rapidly in males than in females. Hospitalisation rates for boys and men with eating disorders have risen sharply over the past decade.

These numbers are almost certainly underestimates. The standard screening tools — the EAT-26, the SCOFF questionnaire — were developed and validated primarily on female samples. They are not calibrated for the way eating disorders present in men, which means men pass through clinical encounters undetected. Their GPs do not flag it. Their families do not name it. They do not name it themselves.

How male eating disorders present differently

The clinical picture in men is often quite different from the stereotype. Many men with eating disorders are not restricting food in a way that looks like anorexia from the outside. They are:

Controlling composition rather than quantity. The focus on macros, protein targets, clean eating, and food purity can be indistinguishable, on the surface, from ordinary health-consciousness. It is not. Underneath, the same psychological architecture is present: the body as never enough, the self as contingent on physical performance, the compulsive behaviour as the only available response to an unbearable internal state.

Exercising compulsively. Exercise dependence and disordered eating are closely intertwined in male presentations. The man who cannot miss a training session, who exercises through injury, who experiences profound anxiety or self-disgust when prevented from training — this is often an eating disorder presentation, not a fitness issue.

Experiencing muscle dysmorphia. Sometimes called reverse anorexia, muscle dysmorphia is the conviction that one is insufficiently muscular regardless of actual muscle mass. It shares the same psychological structure as anorexia nervosa: body image distortion, compulsive compensatory behaviour, and a self-concept that depends entirely on physical performance. It is more prevalent in men than in women and is frequently missed in clinical settings.

Struggling with orthorexia. The preoccupation with dietary purity — eating only foods deemed “clean,” the anxiety triggered by eating outside a rigid framework — is particularly common in men and rarely identified as an eating disorder in male patients.

Why men do not get diagnosed

Several factors combine to produce the diagnostic gap.

The cultural framing of eating disorders as a female problem shapes what clinicians look for, what questions get asked, and what gets recorded. A man presenting with the same symptoms as a woman is less likely to receive an eating disorder diagnosis. This is documented in the research literature.

Alexithymia — the difficulty identifying and describing emotional experience — is significantly more common in men with eating disorders than in the general population. Many men genuinely do not know they have an eating disorder because they do not have access to the internal language that would allow them to name what they are experiencing. They know something is wrong. They cannot say what. This makes self-referral less likely and makes the clinical encounter harder.

The shame is real, and it is specific. Eating disorders carry a particular stigma for men — the sense that this is not a problem men have, that acknowledging it is a failure of masculinity, that seeking help would be humiliating. This stigma kills. Eating disorders have among the highest mortality rates of any psychiatric diagnosis, and men, because they present later and with more severe illness, have disproportionately worse outcomes.

The clinical approach to treatment

Treatment for male eating disorders at this practice is not adapted from a female model. It is built around a clinical understanding of how eating disorders actually present and function in men.

The work is depth-oriented and integrative. It does not focus primarily on food, weight or eating behaviour. It focuses on what those behaviours are doing — what they are managing, protecting against, or expressing. That is what makes change possible at depth, rather than at the level of symptom management alone.

The Jungian framework provides the theoretical orientation: an understanding of the relationship between the conscious self and the unconscious forces that shape behaviour, of the shadow, of the patterns that develop as adaptations to early experience. Integrative psychotherapy and EMDR are drawn upon where clinically indicated.

For many men, the eating disorder is the first time they have engaged with their emotional life at all. Treatment creates a space in which that engagement becomes possible — not through pressure or confrontation, but through a therapeutic relationship that is steady, confidential, and genuinely informed by clinical understanding of this specific population.

What makes this practice different

Very few clinicians in the UK have genuine specialist expertise in male eating disorders. Fewer still have combined clinical practice with doctoral-level research on this subject.

Dr Philippe Jacquet:

Holds a Doctorate of Professional Practice — the only European doctoral research specifically on male eating disorders
Has over 25 years of specialist clinical practice, including eating disorders across all presentations
Is an EMDR Europe accredited practitioner at the highest level — relevant because trauma is frequently implicated in eating disorder presentations
Has supervised the clinical teams at PROMIS Recovery Centre and Cardinal Clinic
Has personal lived experience of recovery from an eating disorder

Lived experience matters in this work. It is not offered as biography — it is offered as clinical context. A practitioner who has faced these difficulties personally brings a quality of understanding that cannot be acquired through training alone.

Beginning treatment

Treatment begins with an initial consultation — a conversation in which you can speak about what has brought you here at whatever pace feels right. There is no assessment procedure, no questionnaire to complete in advance, no obligation to continue. The first session is a conversation between two people.

Sessions are available in person at Harley Street W1, Central London, and Bermondsey SE1. Online sessions via secure video are available worldwide and are equally effective for most presentations. Many clients prefer online work for reasons of privacy or convenience.

No GP referral is required. No formal diagnosis is required. Confidentiality is absolute.

If you are not certain whether what you are experiencing qualifies as an eating disorder — whether it is serious enough, or whether it fits a recognised pattern — that uncertainty is not a barrier to contacting us. It is itself part of what the work addresses.