Although approximately 2% of women experience an episode of anorexia in their life, the prevalence among men remains unclear. Long underestimated, it could reach 1.4%, according to recent estimates. Around 20% of affected people, men and women combined, suffer from a chronic form.
In the Dingue podcast, Gilles, now an ultra-trail runner, explains that it all started with a romantic disappointment in 2000, when he was 22 years old. Complexed by his weight – 120 kilos at the time – he set about transforming himself: “I started going on diets and calculating everything I ate.”
The young man adopts a frantic pace of sport: three sessions per day, between fitness and bodybuilding. The mechanism is racing. For a long time, no one worried about it. In 2003, his fitness managers barred him from accessing it and persuaded him to consult. He then weighed 53 kilos.
A therapeutic failure
In February 2004, Gilles was hospitalized under very strict conditions: “A month cloistered in the room, without authorization to see anyone, neither parents, nor telephone. No walking. We are in a wheelchair. The program is to eat , eat, eat and watch that you eat It’s force-feeding.”
He spent eight months in an institution and gained five kilos, but the lack of lasting psychotherapeutic follow-up limited progress.
Anorexia can be understood as an addiction to control and the ability not to satisfy a need
For Marco Solca, psychiatrist and assistant doctor at the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG), this illustrates a bygone era: “Around 2010, studies showed that the long-term evolution of patients treated on an outpatient basis was not at all case no worse than in hospitalization Today, the majority of centers favor outpatient care.
However, appropriate follow-up remains crucial in his eyes: “Psychotherapeutic work is only possible from a certain weight; otherwise, the brain is simply not able to do this work.” The delay in treatment and the absence of psychotherapeutic follow-up probably contributed to the chronicization of Gilles’ anorexia.
Ultra-trail as an outlet
Today, Gilles, who still lives with anorexia, is an ultra-trail runner. He does not consider himself to be an isolated case: “There are many and it shows. We don’t need to talk about it: we see each other, we recognize each other.”
A typical day is sport, work and sport. If something unexpected happens, I lose control
Marco Solca understands this possible link between anorexia and ultra-trail running: “It’s feeling your body at its most essential and fundamental. A need to feel alive, either through excess sport or by extreme malnutrition. Anorexia can be understood as an addiction to control and the ability to not satisfy a need.
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The control trap
For Gilles, everything revolves around sport and food. “A typical day is sport, work and sport. If I have something unexpected, I lose control: it’s a closed circle.”
According to Marco Solca, this control takes hold insidiously: “Everything often begins with a harmless diet. Then comes the satisfaction linked to weight loss and that of experiencing control. Gradually, the person finds himself stuck in this new functioning, there is a kind of runaway and vicious circle and the longer we wait, the more it will be crystallized, compartmentalized and frozen.
Despite the chronicity of his disorder, Gilles continues to struggle. The mental strength developed in ultra-trail running could one day become an asset to his recovery.
Adrien Zerbini/boi
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