Webinar - Muscles on the Mind: Exploring Contemporary Male Body Image

While conversations about body image and eating disorders have historically focused on women and girls, a growing body of research highlights the unique pressures facing males, including the drive for muscularity, leanness, and performance enhancement. This 60-minute webinar will provide an overview of male body image concerns, including eating disorders, muscle dysmorphia, and muscularity-oriented disordered eating and exercise behaviors. Participants will learn how muscularity ideals are shaped by social media, athletics/sport culture, and fitness environments, and how these pressures can contribute to rigid dieting, compulsive training, supplement overuse (e.g., protein powders, creatine, pre-workouts), and anabolic-androgenic steroid use. The session will also examine warning signs that may be present in fitness settings, such as extreme bulking/cutting cycles, training despite injury, distress about perceived “smallness,” and secrecy around substance use. The goal of the presentation is to equip fitness professionals with practical strategies to 1) recognize early signs of disordered eating and muscle dysmorphia in male clients; 2) navigate conversations on these topics, and 3) refer clients appropriately to mental health and medical supports when needed. Overall, by the end of the session, participants will feel more confident supporting male clients in ways that foster psychological safety, inclusive masculinity, and long-term health.

Kyle T. Ganson, PhD, MSW, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. His research focuses on eating disorders, muscle dysmorphia, and muscle-building behaviours among adolescents and young adults, particularly boys and young men. Dr. Ganson has published over 250 peer-reviewed academic papers in leading adolescent health, eating disorder, body image, and substance use journals. Dr. Ganson has over 12 years of direct clinical social work practice experience and currently has a small private practice in Ontario. He teaches clinical social work courses to MSW students.