Doctors explain the ramifications of living with bigorexia.
Bigorexia is now available on all digital platforms. Click here to order your digital copy! In this clip, top doctors and experts explain what bigorexia is and how it can cause long term unseen suffering.
What is bigorexia? It’s a casual term for body dysmorphic disorder or muscle dysmorphia. To look at it another way, it’s like a reverse anorexia. It’s when a person feels like they are too small no matter how large they become. This often takes the form of building muscle like pro bodybuilders.
While not all pro bodybuilders suffer from bigorexia, it certainly exists in the sport. The film Bigorexia explores six different athletes who have been diagnosed with bigorexia or believe themselves to suffer form it. It goes in depth into their lives and how every single waking moment is affected by this disorder.
In the clip above, doctors and experts who have spent years dedicated to this field go into detail about the ramifications of living with muscle dysmorphia. What is described here is a sort of scale. While some people might be able to more easily live with bigorexia, others tip the scale too far and start using unhealthy measures to keep getting bigger.
In some ways, bigorexia can be a motivating factor. It can lead people to push their bodies and do incredible things. Theoretically, a pro bodybuilder could suffer from bigorexia but use it as motivation to perfect their body, pour it into the passion of the sport, and make a living off of it as a champion.
But things can become messy and extremely dangerous if things go too far. Relying on performance enhancing drugs such as steroid can leave to long term health risks. Some people result to overuse of synthol, an oil that expands muscle artificially. This leads to the so-called “synthol freaks” with extremely disproportionate body shapes.
But most devastatingly, it can also lead to internal suffering. A kind of suffering that not many people would see – even people close to the person living with the disorder. Much like any other mental health disorder, muscle dysmorphia can completely veil a person’s perception. Every action they take, everything they see in the world is through the lens of muscle dysmorphia.
Suddenly, nothing is ever good enough. They are never happy with themselves no matter what they achieve. They bear the cross of suffering for their entire lives – unless they get some sort of help. As one subject in our film, Possible Pat, stats emotionally in the film, “I’m disgusted with my body.”
Bigorexia is now available on all major digital platforms. Click here or the banner below to get your digital copy today!
