Women aren’t the only ones who suffer from eating disorders and body-image issues. The National Eating Disorders Association estimates that a third of the 30 million people suffering from anorexia nervosa and associated disorders in the US today are male. Here, Jane Ridley talks to anorexia survivor Nick Campanella, 29, of Summit, NJ.
One morning in February of 2014, my boss told me I was no longer welcome at the restaurant where I worked until I “figured things out.”
“I’m not mad at you and I know this is a bad time, but we can’t employ you anymore,” he said.
He didn’t have to spell out the reason — gaunt, weak and malnourished, I was a walking skeleton, a shadow of my formerly fun, larger-than-life self. Who wanted their food served by a waiter like me?
Within the space of two years, I’d shrunk from an admittedly large 295 pounds to 145 pounds. My clothes hung off my 6-foot-tall frame as if I were a clown.
Within the space of two years, I’d shrunk from an admittedly large 295 pounds to 145 pounds. My clothes hung off my 6-foot-tall frame as if I were a clown.
My addiction to diet and exercise began innocently enough in the spring of 2012. Pushing 300 pounds after being overweight as a child, I knew I had to do something about my bulk. I was getting tired being on my feet all day at the steakhouse and my health was suffering.
I started reading about success stories on the internet and was really motivated to lose weight, devising an ad hoc diet of about 1,200 calories a day, cutting out the junk and eating more lean meats and vegetables.
It was great at the beginning because the pounds came off rapidly. I’d never been so motivated in my life, and got a high from going to the gym or stepping on the scales, seeing the weight drop off. It was a positive, uplifting experience, and everyone was congratulating me, including my girlfriend of seven years, Peggy, a 29-year-old financial planner.
I lost 100 pounds within the year and was down to a healthy 195 pounds by the start of 2013. Looking back, that would have been a good time to stop. But I just kept going.
Early in the year, I took up running. I downloaded an app called Couch to 5K, an eight-week course which gets you on your feet and racing within eight weeks. I never ran a 5k race, but I got more and more obsessed. By the spring, I was running six miles daily and had reduced my food intake to just 700 calories per day. Suddenly, people started to be concerned. It shifted from, “You’re doing great, man!” to “Hey, is everything okay?”
But I didn’t listen, and couldn’t stop weighing myself. If I didn’t lose weight in one particular week, I felt sad, depressed and angry.
I remember one of my friends asked me to be his groomsman, and I really wasn’t into the idea at all. I didn’t want everyone looking at me and speculating about my health. But I did it because I didn’t want to let him down, and bought an ill-fitting tuxedo that I didn’t feel comfortable in.
Getting put on a leave of absence was a big blow, but it wasn’t surprising. My whole personality had changed. I was bad-tempered, mean to my colleagues and no fun to be around. Peggy even moved out of the home we shared, citing how my weight-loss addiction had changed me. I was at rock bottom.
This time, instead of descending further into anorexia, I started to binge-eat. My body couldn’t sustain the low weight, and I would gorge on four boxes of cereal at a time. Or I’d eat an entire loaf of bread and butter, whatever I could get my hands on. I didn’t purge [vomit], so inevitably I started packing on the pounds I’d lost.
The bingeing lasted the whole month of February while I waited for my insurance to clear me to be admitted to the Eating Disorders Program at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Somerville, NJ. It was at the bidding of my mom, who was desperately worried about me.
When I checked in, I weighed about 200 pounds. I’d gained nearly 60 pounds in the space of three or four weeks. I was treated for three months at the center, both as an inpatient and an outpatient.
I had group therapy twice a day with my peers — there were one 16-year-old boy besides me and 10 women aged between 16 and 30 — and we’d fill the rest of the time with activities such as self-help workshops and food journaling. Luckily for me, it was a strong group, and we all supported each other. I was able to open up to my therapist about an underlying sense of failure and need to feel in control by strictly regulating my eating and exercise.
People started to be concerned. It shifted from, ‘You’re doing great, man!’ to ‘Hey, is everything okay?’
I know that there is increasing pressure on men in the media to look muscled up and lean but, in my case, I think the pressure came more from within.
I was discharged from the program in June 2014 when my weight had stabilized and I was finally able to eat three healthy meals every day.
Going back to work at the steak restaurant was a very humbling experience, but all my colleagues were happy to see the old me return.
Best of all, Peggy and I did a lot of soul-searching and got back together. We got married in November last year.
Now I weigh around 250 pounds and am planning to lose weight healthily and more slowly this time. I’m going to start seeing a nutritionist and personal trainer as well as my therapist. Having a team behind me will remind me that taking things to extremes is never the answer.
The commonly held belief is that anorexia affects high-achieving teenage girls, not a 20-something man like me. But really, eating disorders can strike anyone at any age.