TPP 242: Dr. Roberto Olivardia on Boys, Body Image, and Eating Disorders
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
51 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 13 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the focus of the episode and who is the expert guest?
Parents are also nervous because you hear, you know, one piece, you know, saying, Hey, don't micromanage your kids' food, don't be the food police. You can set them up for an eating disorder. And at the same time, when it comes to differently wired kids, especially, parents are like, if I don't manage it, you know, at all, either my kids are not gonna eat anything or they're gonna be eating way too much that's really gonna set them up for really poor health.
Welcome to Tilt Parenting, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing, and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. I'm your host, Debbie Rieber. Today I'm bringing you a conversation about boys, body image, and eating disorders. I'm excited to bring back to the show clinical psychologist Dr. Roberto Olivardi for this important and often overlooked topic. Roberto last spoke with us about sleep challenges with ADHD, but he also specializes in the treatment of body dysmorphic disorder, ADHD, and OCD, and is a nationally recognized expert in the treatment of eating disorders in boys and men. His book, The Adonis Complex, is the first book of its kind to detail the various manifestations of body image problems in males.
This is one of those thoughtful conversations on a complex and nuanced issue that is still deeply rooted in stigma and shame. I appreciate so much the sensitivity and humanizing approach that Roberto brings to this topic, raising the awareness of the need to understand both the commonalities and differences between gender when it comes to body image and eating disorders. We cover a lot of ground, looking at the ways that eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder shows up in males, the particular impacts of ADHD and other neurodifferences, as well as warning signs for parents to look out for do's and don'ts. And just a note, while our conversation focuses mainly on cisgender males, we do touch on non binary gender considerations as well.
I learned that I learned so much from this conversation. I hope you do too. And now here is my conversation with Roberto. Good morning, Roberto. Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure. Yeah,
I should say welcome back to the podcast. This is your second appearance and you have so many areas of expertise that we could probably come back for a third and fourth, but I'm really excited about our topic today. So would you just take a few minutes and give us your your spiel, your introductory spiel about kind of who you are and and your work in the world?
Sure. Um I am a clinical psychologist and lecture in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. And I have a private practice where I specialize in the treatment of ADHD. I work with uh a lot of particularly kids, but also adults with uh learning differences, um, and also specialize in the treatment of boys and men with eating disorders. Disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder. I work with men and women with body dysmorphic disorder. And particularly within the field of eating disorders and boys and men, that's something really over the last 25 years I've been working in ever since actually I was an undergraduate when I did my first study, which was my senior honors thesis, and I co-wrote a book in 2000 called The Adonis Complex.
which really was the first book of its kind that looked at all the various manifestations of body image issues and eating disorders that we see in males.
Yeah, and that's what we're gonna be talking about today is treating this work that you do in treating boys and men with eating disorders and with body image problems and I just think this is such an interesting topic because and I'm sure you found this. Obviously, you know, I grew up in the eighties and the nineties and there was all the conversation was this was a issue for girls and anorexia and bulimia and um it was just not something really talked about for boys and for men. And so I'm curious how you even got involved in this.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the focus of the episode and who is the expert guest?
0:00–7:10
2
How did Dr. Olivardia become interested in eating disorders in boys?
7:10–13:30
3
What do the research studies reveal about the prevalence of eating disorders in males?
13:30–20:04
4
How has social media and modern media intensified body‑image pressure for boys?
20:04–25:52
5
What practical strategies can parents use to recognize and address eating‑disorder signs in their sons?
25:52–31:57
6
What are the key warning signs of body dysmorphic disorder and muscle dysmorphia in boys?
31:57–38:55
7
How do gender identity, LGBTQ+ status, and sexuality intersect with body‑image issues in youth?
38:55–44:44
8
Where can listeners find more resources and contact Dr. Olivardia for help?
44:44–51:19
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
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TPP 522: A Whole Child Approach to ADHD with Phil Boucher, M.D.
TPP 091a: A Conversation With Steve Silberman About His Book “Neurotribes”
TPP 521: A Conversation with Dr. Peter Gray About Restoring Childhood
TPP 253a: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
TPP 520: Dr. Özgür Bolat on Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids