Who can suffer from purging disorder?

 It is important to remember that eating disorders can afflict the male population, it is not as heard of for two reasons, 1) men are much less likely to come forward about their eating disorder, either because they are unaware they have disordered eating habits or because they are afraid their masculinity would be affected by accepting their problem and help for it. Thus many cases are not brought to light. 2) Male appearance is not as idealised in the media as it is for women; pressures upon male shape and size are much less than that of women.

Adolescence is the common age upon which an eating disorder is developed; however purging disorder has been seen among women in their 30’s and older.

Like with all eating disorders, anyone is susceptible to purging disorder. It is however a relatively new eating disorder and one not yet officially confirmed; therefore statistics for this particular eating disorder are not available. It is a safe assumption that like bulimia and anorexia, (as symptoms and characteristics are similar in terms of body image issues, mostly induced by the media) that women suffer more commonly from purging disorder than men.

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