An Eating Disorder in the Major Leagues
Women are usually depicted as suffering from eating disorders. Until the last few years, men and eating disorders were considered a misconception and not talked about. The truth is that eating disorders can affect any human that needs to eat food to survive – including males. Eating disorders affect about 10 million men currently in the United States. Because of the negative bias that these men think that they may get from society though, they may choose not to get the help that they most certainly need.
One of the main reasons that males tend to suffer from eating disorders is because they do not have the body image that they want to have. Many guys desire to have a lean and more muscular physique. Restricting their diet and working out more is a common misconceived notion of how men can get the six-pack that they’ve always wanted.
For one player in Major League Baseball, an eating disorder become a major part of his daily life. Mike Marjama, who is the catcher for the Seattle Mariners, has put his eating disorder out there for the world to observe. His hope is to help other men who may not think that they have a way to overcome their own eating disorders.
Marjama broke his silence in a recent documentary for Lebron James’ multimedia platform, Uninterrupted, that gives athletes a way to tell their stories. In his manifesto, Marajama recalls his shameful days of suffering from eating disorders that started in eighth grade and went on thru his junior year in high school.
The obsession that he had with his body started with trying to impress girls. At that time in his life, the focus was all about getting a girlfriend through getting the perfect body and going to any lengths to get it. “I started just restricting my diet, just overworking,” Marjama said. “I put a stationary bike in the shower and would ride until I passed out.”
His eating disorder got progressively worse as he started to add binging and purging along with his excessive working out antics and stints of anorexia. He finally got some help in eleventh grade when he entered in-patient treatment for his eating disorder.
Ten years later after his harrowing high school days, Mike Marjama is still in recovery where he can truly appreciate his career and not take it for granted. Getting into recovery was the way that Mike Marjama figured out how to knock his eating disorder out of the ballpark.
Montare Recovery Solutions can help someone that is suffering from mental illness get better. Our nurturing program allows our clients to connect to one another or with our highly qualified clinicians and counselors for the best chance at recovery.
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