When we hear the phrase “eating disorder,” we automatically think of a bony, teenage girl. After all, no one else but young girls would form dangerous habits to achieve their ideal body image. Boys would never wish to be skinny. Older people don’t have self-confidence issues. Obese people losing a lot of weight can’t be unhealthy.

Many tend to have these common, but false, generalizations. From 1999 to 2011, Boston Children’s Hospital surveyed over 5,000 young men, and found that 31% of them had binged or purged at some point. The number may be even greater than when taking into account other types of eating disorders, like anorexia. People of any age and gender can be stressed, depressed, or unhappy with their body, and fail to deal with it in a healthy manner. Sometimes, we also overlook those who are obese and who desperately try to become thin. According to a Huffington Post article, “some doctors rely too heavily on… healthy weight charts,” so it takes a lot longer for them to find out eating issues that heavy people have. Many of those suffering from these disorders don’t match the typical image. We think we know all about eating disorders, when in fact there are more people suffering from them than we tend to believe.

Admittedly, we have grown more aware of this issue than before. Eating problems have been around for a long time. Psychology Today describes how ascetics, like Saint Catherine of Siena, used to practice extreme fasting, and how rich people would show off by eating a lot of food, even purging to eat more. Around the 20th century, society began to view this as a serious problem, leading to more research, education, and awareness. Somewhere along the line, we inaccurately determined that skinny young girls represent those with eating disorders.

Although we have made progress, we still have inaccurate stereotypes that circumscribe our way of thinking. These stereotypes can make people who don’t fit the mold feel unable to reach out, make others ignorant of their disorder, and thus hinder their process of recovery.