Typical mental health awareness campaigns are not designed with the unique needs of men in mind. Men account for only one in 10 diagnosed cases of depression. However, the suicide rate among men in the United States is alarmingly high and climbing. According to the CDC, four out of every five people who die by suicide are men.
When suicide experts started looking closely at men and suicide, they found that those at highest risk of suicide were also the least likely to seek care. They knew that they needed a way to reach to these men that was different than other public health awareness campaigns. As a result, The Carson J Spencer Foundation, the Colorado Office of Suicide Prevention, and Cactus, a private marketing agency, teamed up to create Man Therapy.
Communities around the world will recognize National Eating Disorders Awareness Week February 22 to February 28, and with good reason. Some 20 million women and 10 million men will suffer from an eating disorder at some point in their lives. Yet, there is still a lot of misunderstanding about these conditions. Although you may understand quite a bit about them, it’s important to remember that there are still some persistent myths about eating disorders. Some are below.
Myth: Eating disorders are rare.
Fact: Eating disorders are actually common, especially among adolescent females in the United States. In this population, anorexia is the 3rd most common chronic illness. In addition, some research shows that up to 7% of females in the United States have had bulimia at some point in their lives.
Your physical and mental health are inexorably related, and research shows that this is especially true in the case of heart disease and depression. February is American Heart Month, which is a great time to focus on the link between heart disease and depression.
A study published in the American Heart Association’s Journal Circulation revealed that people who suffered a heart attack are three times more likely to develop depression than the general population. This is even true of patients who have no history of depression. Depression after a heart attack also puts patients at risk for a subsequent heart attack.
The vast majority of what we know about eating disorders is based on what we know about women and girls with eating disorders. Despite an emerging awareness of the significant number of men and boys who deal with disordered eating, we, as a field, haven’t really wrestled with the ways in which male physical and emotional development, physiology, acculturation, and normative relational experiences influence the expression of eating psychopathology.
Screening for Mental Health, Inc.
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