IRISH doctors are concerned at the increase in the number of young men working out obsessively in gyms as they attempt to develop the six-pack abs sported by style icons such as David Beckham.

There are fears that a growing minority of men are compulsively spending a large chunk of their day pumping iron or pounding the treadmill, a regime that can become physically and psychologically addictive. There are no official figures outlining the scale of the problem as men rarely seek professional help when such addiction develops, doctors say.

Dr John Griffin, director of the eating disorder programme at St Patrick’s Hospital in Dublin, says exercise addiction first emerged on the west coast of America, where it was dubbed the “male Baywatch syndrome”.

Men now account for 15% of his patients, up from 5% in the 1970s. “It’s only really beginning in Ireland and a proportion of these men develop eating disorders,” said Griffin.

“If someone is working out at 6am before work and then again after work, every day, it’s an obsession and, like any other addiction, it puts that person’s life on hold. They become obsessed with looking in the mirror and trying to get the ‘perfect’ figure.

“I think it happens because there’s a lot of conditioning and programming in the media, fashion industry and advertising with men nowadays.”

John Stack, a 32-year-old Kerryman, developed an exercise addiction and later an eating disorder at the age of 17. Stack, who has since recovered and now works as a personal trainer, lost half his body weight and once weighed as little as six stone.

“I decided to get fit and it was nice to go for an occasional cycle but then I started to become obsessive and soon I was cycling 30 miles every day before college,” he said. “I then started reducing the amount of food I ate. By 19, my body was in agony.

“I had a poor self-image and I learned that I had a predisposition towards going down that road. Some men are sensitive about their weight and are at risk from what’s presented in the media.”

A study by psychologists at Winchester University has found that the more health magazines a man reads, the more likely he is to suffer from “athletica nervosa”. Gary Rhodes, the British chef who has restaurant in Dublin, is said to get up at 4.30am to work out. He recently stripped off for Men’s Health.

James Swan, a personal trainer at the West Wood gym in Clontarf, said that Irish men are increasingly under pressure to emulate celebrity body shapes. “Everyone wants to look like Brad Pitt,” he said. “More men, like women, are defining themselves by their bodies.”

Three weeks ago the Harley Medical Group reported a 35% increase in cosmetic procedures at its Irish clinic in the year to June, with men accounting for 20% of business. They are most likely to undergo rhinoplasty, followed by liposuction and eye-bag removal

Over 50% more men aged between 35 and 55 are having Botox treatments now, compared with the same time last year. The number of men getting cosmetic surgery in Ireland and Britain has risen by 140% in the last five years, according to the Harley Medical Group, which operates in both countries.

Doctors say more young boys are battling with bulimia and anorexia. Bodywhys, a support group for people with eating disorders, says that men now account for between 15% and 25% of sufferers, up from 10% a few years ago.

Rory Lehane, a Cork-based GP who contributed to In Search of Thinness, a handbook on dealing with eating disorders, claims he has seen boys as young as nine with an eating disorder in his surgery.

“Ten years ago, it was almost exclusively teenage girls but now there are more boys and men,” Lehane said. “I might only see one a year but there are 200 other GPs in Cork who would see the same, and that’s only the boys who go to the doctor.

“I asked one man who had suffered for five years before presenting for treatment why it took so long and he said: ‘Doctor, it’s a girly disease’.”

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