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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Adrian Chiles

Many men have a problematic relationship with food – and I’m one of them

Man on a train looking through the window
A buffet trolley can be hard to resist – as Adrian Chiles once discovered on a train from London to Manchester. Photograph: andresr/Getty Images (posed by a model)

More than half of men with eating disorders have never received treatment; a third of them have never sought it. These figures, from the eating disorder charity Beat, don’t surprise me. It’s not just a women’s thing. Seven in 10 men with an eating disorder had never heard of or read about other men being affected before they became unwell.

In the stuff I do about problem drinking, people often tell me that they don’t have an “off switch”. In other words, once they start, they can’t stop. This was never really my problem. Although I was drinking problematic amounts, on any given day, I wouldn’t carry on for ever; I’d know when to stop, a long way short of oblivion or even what you might recognise as drunkenness.

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