Summer holidays are a period of rest and disconnection from work for most people; However, there are those who, even during these days of free time, sabotage themselves without realizing it and involuntarily, feeding a vicious cycle of stress and personal insecurities that are further intensified by breaking with the routine and structure that the workday provided.
One of the most characteristic disorders that can emerge during summer vacations is vigorexia, a mental disorder based on an obsession with gaining muscle volume to leave behind what is considered to be a physique that is too thin or poorly defined. Let’s see how it relates to the typical experiences we usually have during this summer vacation break.
Vigorexia is a psychological disorder that consists of an obsession with one’s own physical image, which is perceived as a body that is too weak or thin. Because of this, people with vigorexia tend to eat a lot of calories to gain volume, and they usually also combine this with excessive physical exercise.
Due to its characteristics, this alteration has come to be considered a kind of reverse anorexia, although it presents many qualitative differences with respect to this one, and is not so dangerous because it does not lead to malnutrition, but rather to malnutrition. Now, it very clearly affects both self-esteem and personal relationships as well as the way the person relates to food, which becomes problematic and generates stress due to the search for control over what is consumed.
Vigorexia usually affects men between 18 and 35 years old, and both the promotion of new fitness lifestyles and the popularization of the habit of going to the gym to get stronger among increasingly younger people could be precipitating the appearance of more and more cases of vigorexia.
How can the arrival of the holidays trigger a case of vigorexia?
There are many causes that can cause the appearance of a case of vigorexia, and these depend on each individual person. On the other hand, summer vacations by themselves are not the cause of vigorexia, among other things because all psychopathology arises from a combination of personal and social factors. However, summer offers a context in which the trigger for this alteration arises very easily.
Below you will find a summary of the different ways in which the arrival of summer holidays can reinforce or help trigger this alteration (along with other combined causes).
1. Influence of social networks
Social networks can be very useful tools to communicate with friends or to learn certain useful or curious knowledge; However, for many people can cause certain complexes about your physique due to comparisons with other bodies.
During the summer vacations, social networks are filled with publications in which their users share photographs of their summer retreats, usually in a swimsuit or with little clothing. In addition, images with more desirable content tend to receive more interactions, which increases their reach and eclipses the rest of the publications with non-normative bodies.
This makes it possible for many users to feel bad when seeing the sculptural bodies of both famous influencers and friends and acquaintances and assume that this is “the norm”, which generally causes feelings of complex or inferiority that can trigger an eating disorder in general or a case of vigorexia in particular.
Likewise, the vacation period is a season in which everyone wears less clothes on the street and leaves more of their body visible, which It can enhance some complexes in some people who have already been “dragging” them for months or years.
This insecurity with one’s own body when going to the beach or participating in summer activities can also generate great discomfort in the person, which can often translate into the appearance of a case of vigorexia as a kind of defensive strategy that, In reality, it causes more problems than it solves.
3. Desire to impress
The desire to impress people you only see during this time of year, whether friends or family, can also often lead to an obsession with exercising and food that helps you get strong. In this case, the obsession with gaining muscle mass does not come so much from previous complexes with one’s own body, but from an intense desire to stand out through the physique and earn the admiration or acceptance of others without having to apply social skills something that in the long run makes these complexes appear due to the desire to get closer to an idealized version of that muscular “I”.
These two elements are essential in the appearance of a case of vigorexia, which is why it is so important to talk to a friend or family member who may be going through this process, especially the younger they are.
4. Obsessive need to be productive in free time
Another cause that can precipitate the appearance of a case of vigorexia is the obsessive need to use the extra free time that summer offers to exercise and watch what you eat (during the rest of the year, work hours make it more difficult to have high control over diet). That is, the indecision of what to do with free time causes the emergence of a discomfort at the idea of wasting those hours with nothing to do something that leads to directing attention towards one’s own body when thinking about getting in shape.
In addition to that, the mere fact of having more free time during the summer can also progressively cause a greater obsession with getting stronger and gaining more muscle mass.
5. Extreme diets
Dietitians and nutritionists are well aware of the danger that miracle diets entail, especially if they are started or ended randomly and without the supervision of a professional. And, at the same time, the beginning of summer and the weeks before it are a time of year when extreme solutions to getting in shape are most advertised ; Exposure to these advertisements and publications fuels the complexes with one’s own physique.
These types of unscientific diets can also end up promoting a person’s obsession with food and causing an eating disorder or a case of vigorexia and obsession with physical exercise.
Do you want to know more about vigorexia?
If you are interested in learning more about this and other disorders related to eating behavior, the book Eating behavior: Beyond the body and food by Marc Ruiz de Minteguía psychologist at “Psychology and Psychotherapy Miguel Ángel”, is for you.
In its pages you will find the keys to understanding this group of psychopathologies from the hand of a psychologist with years of experience dealing with this type of cases.
