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" A couple of weeks ago, I Gchatted my friend Matt* to see if he wanted to get Sunday brunch at one of our favorite fancy egg joints. His reply? &amp;quot;Can&amp;#039;t\u2014I&amp;#039;m not eating fried food right now, and they don&amp;#039;t have salads there.&amp;quot; I was bummed\u2014I really wanted those gooey fried eggs with hash browns! But I was also mystified. Had Matt joined the growing ranks of dieting guys who my friends have been encountering on dates, at their jobs, and everywhere else? Amy R., a 33-year-old personal trainer in New York City, told me that she&amp;#039;d started dating a guy and everything was going great\u2026until she asked if he wanted to grab a late dinner one night. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t eat past 9 p.m.,&amp;quot; he replied. &amp;quot;Wanna go for a run instead? It&amp;#039;s healthier.&amp;quot; Buzzkill! Jessica S., a 27-year-old artist in Los Angeles, told me that her guy friend started doing the Paleo diet with his buddies, and it quickly became a man cult: &amp;quot;He won&amp;#039;t eat carbs anymore. He&amp;#039;ll only eat things that a caveman would&amp;#039;ve killed, and it&amp;#039;s all he and his friends talk about. They&amp;#039;re obsessed!&amp;quot; And Shae S., a 24-year-old account executive in Los Angeles, reported that her boyfriend of two and a half years is a recent carb cutter too: &amp;quot;I cooked him a surprise pasta dinner, but he refused to eat it because he decided he wasn&amp;#039;t eating carbs at night. I was so sad!&amp;quot; We&amp;#039;re used to women requesting their dressing on the side and making the bread basket enemy number one, while men merrily scarf burgers, never stopping to consider if the bun will go straight to their guts. But the tide seems to be turning, and now guys are putting their food issues on public display. So what&amp;#039;s going on? MAN, INTERRUPTED  My friends aren&amp;#039;t the only women noticing these guy-eters. In a Cosmo poll of more than 550 women, 70 percent said their boyfriends or guy friends have admitted to dieting\u201470 percent! &amp;quot;These days, men are more self-conscious about their bodies than ever before,&amp;quot; confirms Gary Wenk, PhD, author of Your Brain on Food. &amp;quot;They care about their weight and pay attention to what they&amp;#039;re eating just as much as women do.&amp;quot; However, Wenk and other experts are quick to point out that there are two very different types of food-obsessed male eaters. The first type suffers from actual, diagnosable food issues, like an eating disorder (anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge-eating disorder), or exhibits disordered eating behavior. Experts say these guys are indisputably on the rise. &amp;quot;We used to think the ratio of eating disorders in women versus men was 9 to 1, but new data indicates it&amp;#039;s only 2 to 1,&amp;quot; says Jennifer Thomas, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and coauthor of the new book Almost Anorexic. A 2010 study published in the journal Eating Behaviors found that a large number of men reported disordered eating behavior: 31 percent said they&amp;#039;d engaged in excessive exercise as a means of controlling weight; 24 percent said they&amp;#039;d refrained from eating for at least eight hours in order to lose weight; 25 percent said they&amp;#039;d engaged in at least one episode of binge eating; and 3 percent said they&amp;#039;d made themselves throw up. &amp;quot;Yes, eating disorders are more equal opportunity now,&amp;quot; says Thomas. The second type of off-kilter male eater is harder to identify because his patterns can be interpreted as healthy on the surface. Experts refer to this breed of eater as an orthorexic: &amp;quot;Orthorexia is an unofficial term in the eating-disorder community to describe people who are obsessed with eating healthy,&amp;quot; explains Cynthia Bulik, PhD, director of the University of North Carolina Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders. So wait, what&amp;#039;s so bad about wanting to eat right? For some guys, a health kick can become an obsession. &amp;quot;Being concerned about eating healthy is tricky because it seems okay at first glance, but what happens with lots of people is that their thoughts become completely consumed by food,&amp;quot; explains Jenni Schaefer, Thomas&amp;#039;s Almost Anorexic coauthor and National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) spokesperson. Schaefer cites a guy she dated who ate only raw food and wouldn&amp;#039;t even set foot in restaurants that weren&amp;#039;t raw. &amp;quot;These seemingly healthy diets, like raw food and gluten-free, may be fine for some people, but many actually use them as a disguise to hide their food obsession,&amp;quot; she says. And although there aren&amp;#039;t yet official numbers, experts believe orthorexics or those toeing the line of orthorexia comprise a large segment of the dieting-dude trend. HIS NEW BODY BLUES  The pros agree that a few major sociological trends could be triggering these food patterns in men\u2014the first being a big shift in our society&amp;#039;s gender roles. &amp;quot;Women today are more independent and have more powerful positions in the workplace than ever before, which means men aren&amp;#039;t necessarily the power players they once were,&amp;quot; explains Susan Klebanoff, PhD, a clinical psychologist in New York City who specializes in eating disorders. Those changing roles may inspire insecurity in guys. &amp;quot;And when people feel insecure, it often manifests itself as concern with their physical appearance,&amp;quot; Klebanoff explains. In other words, men are feeling uneasy about their no longer obviously dominant role in society, which they can&amp;#039;t control, and some are taking that insecurity out on what they eat\u2014something they can control. Another reason more guys are increasingly counting calories? Our society&amp;#039;s growing obsession with people&amp;#039;s bodies. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s everywhere!&amp;quot; exclaims Bulik. &amp;quot;The body scrutiny has gotten much stronger in our culture. It used to be mainly scrutiny of women&amp;#039;s bodies, but now men&amp;#039;s bodies are talked about almost as much, and body insecurities are finally worming their way into guys&amp;#039; brains just as much as into women&amp;#039;s.&amp;quot; In fact, a new study published in the March 2013 issue of the Journal of Eating Disorders found that a growing number of men are suffering from something called bigorexia, an obsession with looking buff. Schaefer believes that the so-called G.I. Joe effect could have something to do with it. &amp;quot;When G.I. Joe was made in the 1960s, his proportions were comparable with those of typical men at that time. But today, the toy&amp;#039;s muscle mass and definition have increased so much so that if he were real, he&amp;#039;d have bigger biceps than Arnold Schwarzenegger&amp;#039;s in his prime.&amp;quot; In other words, men are so surrounded by the dialogue about buff guys that they want to emulate them. Just ask Gabby F., a 27-year-old editor in New York City, whose boyfriend has become obsessed with the ripped abs of Sean from The Bachelor. &amp;quot;Last season, Sean made it known that he eats 18 egg whites per day, so my boyfriend started trying to do the same!&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;He even keeps an EPD\u2014egg (white) per day\u2014count, and he updates me on it throughout the day. He will literally e-mail me and say, &amp;#039;EPD 7, so far.\u2026&amp;#039; It&amp;#039;s crazy!&amp;quot; LOVE ON A DIET  So what happens if you&amp;#039;re dating one of these guy-eters? The first step is to determine if he&amp;#039;s being healthy about it or if he&amp;#039;s going too far. A good litmus test: For every four times you go out together, he should indulge at least one of those times, says Los Angeles-based relationship expert Catherine Cardinal, PhD, author of Men to Run From: So You Can Find the One to Run To. If he refuses to ever indulge with you or gets worked up and defensive when you ask him about his food preferences, there&amp;#039;s probably something more going on. If that&amp;#039;s the case, tell him that you love him and are concerned for his health. You could suggest he see a nutritionist or therapist and offer to go with him for moral support or point him to NEDA&amp;#039;s website\u2014they have a new service that allows him to talk online with a trained help-line volunteer if he&amp;#039;s not ready to see someone face-to-face. Even if your guy&amp;#039;s eating patterns are mostly healthy, it can still impact your relationship in a couple of key ways. Let&amp;#039;s start with the best-case scenario: His good habits can influence you to improve yours too. &amp;quot;My boyfriend started eating super healthy a couple of months ago, and it was annoying at first\u2014he wouldn&amp;#039;t eat any of our favorite junk-food snacks anymore,&amp;quot; says Shae S., the 24-year-old whose boyfriend wouldn&amp;#039;t eat her surprise pasta dinner. &amp;quot;But then I found myself choosing good-for-you snacks too, and I feel way better. Plus, he&amp;#039;s started doing more cooking now to try out recipes, so I&amp;#039;m a happy girl.&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s the ideal case, but it&amp;#039;s not always that smooth. &amp;quot;My husband stopped eating carbs a couple of weeks ago, and he won&amp;#039;t go to our favorite Italian restaurant anymore,&amp;quot; says Erika B., a 29-year-old editor in New York City. &amp;quot;I want to support him but I also want to continue to eat what I want, so I don&amp;#039;t know what to do.&amp;quot; In that situation, Cardinal says that you can and should picket for your pasta\u2014in other words, suggest a compromise. &amp;quot;Just say, &amp;#039;Hey, I know you don&amp;#039;t want Italian, but I love that restaurant, so why don&amp;#039;t you try ordering fish or chicken instead,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; she advises. If he really can&amp;#039;t deal with the temptation, decide to take turns picking restaurants. &amp;quot;That way you accept and acknowledge his way of thinking without being a total pushover, which is unhealthy for the relationship.&amp;quot; One final possibility is that his eating habits start to negatively affect the way you view yourself. In Cosmo&amp;#039;s poll, 31 percent of women reported that being around a guy on a diet makes them feel fat. That&amp;#039;s understandable, but it&amp;#039;s crucial to shove those thoughts aside and proceed as usual. &amp;quot;To be a healthy couple, you each need to be a whole person first, then meet in the middle\u2014so it&amp;#039;s important not to take on his food issues as your own,&amp;quot; explains Klebanoff. And if you find yourself dating a guy who&amp;#039;s so focused on food that it&amp;#039;s stopping you from enjoying all aspects of life\u2014including the occasional happy-hour fried-calamari feast\u2014move on before you get too emotionally tangled in his issues. After all, he&amp;#039;s clearly not able to prioritize you right now\u2026and you deserve a guy who will. *Name has been changed.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/health-fitness/advice/a4411/rise-of-the-dieting-dude/>