When the 14 -year -old son, Ethan, 14, stopped eating junk food and began to count the calories obsessively, knew that something was wrong. Then the child’s waistline began to shrink.
“He is really not eating much at food time,” said Casey, who asked to use pseudonyms for him and his son, he told The Post of Ethan, who measures 5’8 “and 122 pounds.
The red flags were soft at the beginning. Ethan, an eighth grade student in a private school in Manhattan, began to reject ice cream, his favorite dessert despite always having a sweet tooth.
One night at dinner, Casey noticed that his son was taking photos of the food on his plate and uploading them to Myfitnesspal, an application to lose weight, to see how many food calories he consumed.
“He is determined to lose weight, but he has nothing to lose,” Casey said.
Parents and specialists in eating disorders told the publication how more children and young adolescents have become hyper-allegos about their physique lately, with the muscular and the buff becomes less desirable as Wifish stars as Timothée Chalamet and trends such as “Mewing” and “Maxing looks” continue to dominate social networks.
“Today’s youth are challenging the gender norm rather than in the past,” said Jason Nagata, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco
In other words, the diet is no longer just the domain of girls.
“I used to be children, they wanted to increase,” Casey told the post. “Now, actors like Timothée Chalamet are giving them a completely new look to achieve.”
Simply ask Dempsey Bobbit, 19, a first -year student from Cranford University, New Jersey, who recently won third place in a contest similar to Calamet.
“My friends at school who are girls say they want thin men. It is the opposite of what you would expect,” he said. As a result, “every guy I know is really critical of what they eat. It is a bit strange. They pay attention. They are always trying to get thinner. Broccoli, rice, chicken: chicken is the only protein.”
Bobbit himself has 5 ′ 9 ″ and weighs between 120 and 125 pounds, and said he is “naturally thin” without trying: “Not at most, point. I like sweets, soft drinks. That and coffee is my diet.”
But, wherever he goes, he sees his desperate age to other types for getting thin.
“Every time I go to the gym is like, ‘Do I look fat?'” He said about his teammates. “These are normal types that are aware of how they look.”
A third of adolescents in the United States are trying to lose weight, according to a 2023 study conducted by the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco found.
Casey believes that Ethan and his friends are chasing a romantic ideal.
“The girls of my son’s age do not feel threatened by a Timothée chame body, so they communicate this to boys in their degree,” he said. “Then (the children) try to emulate the private brand of male chalamt acceptability.”
Spencer Delorenzo-A 22-year-old long islands that he has 5 ′ 4 ″ and weighs 98 pounds, he told the publication that “women move away from the great and muscular types, so men are now interested in losing weight. I have friends who thought: ‘Oh, I would like it to be as thin as you.”
In Tiktok and Reddit, there are many communities and influencers dedicated to how to obtain the co -frown waist of Chalamet, according to the reports, can fit into the female jaw of Comedian Matt Rife.
An alarming number of teenagers with compression shirts, flat flexions and small diapers that flaunt appear in videos on the “Skinnerboys” Tiktok Discover, which is dedicated to “tips and tricks so that thin children look better with physical style and state”.
Hyper obsession with weight is also driven by “looksmaxxing”, in which adolescents and twenty are aimed at remodeling their shirts and cheekbones to increase their “sexual market value.”
That has generated the “MAULD Trend”, flattening the tongue to the roof of the mouth to achieve a definite jawline character to the Christian Bale in the movie “American Psycho”.
Tiktok is also full of young people who publish their calories and food plans in the #MYFITNESSPAL application, which is technically restricted to minors.
It is estimated that 1 in 3 people with an eating disorder are men, and 10 million American children and men will fight with the disorder at some point in their lives, according to data from the American Psychology Association.
“I used to be upset if I ate junk food, I am now buying junk food. Ice cream, cakes, anything from the bakery,” Casey told The Post. “My concern is the physical damage I could do for him (he) continues not eating well.”
In his son’s annual physicist, Casey said, the doctor told Ethan that he needed to gain weight. And Ethan is not the only one in his group of friends doing this.
“I began to notice that his friends were really thin, they are serious,” Casey told The Post, added that other parents have told him that his young children are suddenly diet.
Ironically, Chalamet, 29, has said that, when he was younger, he lost roles in the films series “Maze Runner” and “Divergent” because “the feedback was always, ‘Oh, you don’t have the right body’.
“I had an agent who called me and said: ‘Basically, you have to gain weight,'” the actor to Apple Music’s Zane Like, and added that he won 20 pounds for his award -winning role in “A complete stranger.”
But its super thin appearance is even changing things for young people in Hollywood.
Zander Dueve, 22, who works as an actor and model per day and security guard at night, told the casting directors of the post that seek bodily types.
“It is definitely a malnourished look,” he said, and pointed out that he is 5 ′ 11 ‘and wears men’s size pants 29. “It has become a phenomenon: everyone wants that appearance.
“It’s a kind of f – Keed that people like, but it’s what it is.”
If you or someone you know you have problems with an eating disorder, visit the Website of the National Association of Food Disorders (NEDA) Or call your direct line at (800) -931-2237 to get help.
