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Previous Volume 344:146-147 January 11, 2001 Number 2 Next

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By Harrison G. Pope, Jr., Katharine A. Phillips, and Roberto Olivardia. 286 pp., illustrated. New York, Free Press, 2000. $25. ISBN 0-684-86910-1.

This interesting and provocative book describes a form of obsession in which otherwise healthy men become absorbed by compulsive exercising, eating disorders, body-image distortion, and ultimately, abuse of anabolic steroids. In a manner analogous to the course of anorexia nervosa, the social norm of male "fitness" turns, in these sad men, into an insatiable obsession with growing "bigger" and more muscular. When exercise and dieting rituals, no matter how fanatical, fail, recourse to drugs, mostly anabolic steroids, appears to be an easy transition. Body-obsessed men find that drugs are readily available from underground suppliers who gravitate to gyms like moths . . . [Full Text of this Article]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Pope, H. G. Jr., Olivardia, R., Phillips, K. A., Handelsman, D. J. (2001). Review of The Adonis Complex. NEJM 344: 1557-1558 [Full Text]