Bigorexia

We know that the evils of the last century are many, by now countless ...
But among lovers of the body, sport and well-being in general, terms such as ANOREXIA and BULIMIA have always stood out ... Well, today alongside these it is precisely the case to add another, no less important and worrying: BIGORESSIA.

THE NEW EVIL: BIGOREXIA

"Bigorexia" is a term coined by some doctors and which finds its etymology in the "English" big = large "and in the Latin" orex = appetite ", to indicate the" hunger for thickness "or the desire to have a more muscular body and more "dry". It is a real pathology, like the two mentioned above, which leads to a chronic dissatisfaction with one's physical appearance and an obsessive fear (sometimes I would say "terror") of losing one's their muscles and their state of perfect shape perhaps achieved after years of training, diets and sacrifices.
All this is accompanied by self-punitive behaviors, inflicting heavy workouts, often even very long ones that lead instead to progress over time to a state of over-training with the necessary psycho-physical consequences as well as drastic and very rigid diets or dietary regimes that more often than not they lead to what I would dare to call a form of "social self-isolation".
This emerges when you go out in a group, with friends who may also be gym-goers but who do not have the same "fixed" and so, the bigorexic "finds himself regularly sitting at the table, even once a month, terrified of having to order a pizza or a beer to re-enter "the group" or in any case not to demonstrate one's "unsociality" for the umpteenth time.
The deleterious and very harmful abuse of food supplements such as proteins, creatine, which favor muscle growth or its maintenance, and in extreme cases anabolic steroids, GH, and so on, should not be overlooked. This pathological behavior can lead to mood disorders, states of anguish and alterations in social relationships, becoming a conditioning that is sometimes unsustainable as well as harmful, if we think that a man (or a woman) certainly cannot live his days as a function of diet and training, having a job, an emotional life, maybe a family and always little time available.
Doctors speak of a sort of "reverse anorexia", as the "anorexic refuses food in search of constant and greater thinness, often to the point of" physical self-annihilation while the "bigorexic" tries all possible ways (training to the extreme, high-protein diet, abuse of drugs and "stimulating" substances ...) an ever greater muscle volume, living in the fear of losing even a single hectogram of muscle or seeing even a very small "thread" of belly grow that covers the "coveted and sweaty abdominal tortoise".
I believe that this problem is too underestimated ... Every day I observe in the weight room these "hypertrophic big men" perfect as Riace bronzes, slaughtering themselves under barbells and dumbbells, screaming from the effort as if to emphasize their "thickness" and mirror themselves continuously to check the volume of the biceps or the pumping of the pectorals just "smashed on the flat bench".
Sometimes I seem to be prisoners of the mirror, slaves to their own image and the fear of being told "However, I see you a little" smaller lately "... Woe to being made such an observation! They widen their eyes blushing and looking desperately to see if this is actually the case.
It is therefore not surprising that this pathology has also been renamed as the "Adonis Complex", a character from Greek mythology representing the idea of ​​male beauty as physical perfection in aesthetic form.
It is also curious to note how the evolution of the concept of "physical perfection" and that of "material" models available, for example, in the world of toys went hand in hand.
It was Harrison Pope himself, the author of the first research on the subject, who observed the particular and obvious evolution of the infamous BIG JYM, toys so popular in the Barbie years.
The first Big Jym (from 1964) was in fact morphologically similar to an average man, in shape, but not excessively thin or hypertrophied ... cole time and years, with the advent of Business Fitness, while Barbie always lost weight more up to the present with ibex legs and pelvis with a diameter almost inferior to the head, the Big Jim grew more and more in musculature, becoming similar to the current classic body builder who builds his body with aids that are not always legal and healthy ...
What to say...
Even body building, like competitive sport with doping, continually undergoes changes in the conception of its very meaning, often ending up being a "double-edged sword, having an admirable goal that then deviates towards less advantageous ways and using means that are often harmful and dangerous.
Conclusion: better a thin thread of "bacon" but a dazzling smile and a happy and free life than an "artificially" tortoiseshell abdomen and a life conditioned by external stereotypes and among other things in constant change.

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