Some men may delay seeking help for eating disorders because there is a widespread perception that these are women's problem, a new study has found.

According to UK researchers, eating disorders are on the rise among men, however the true prevalence is hard to estimate due to poor recognition of the signs and symptoms in males.

They decided to look into this issue further by interviewing 39 people aged between 16 and 25, 10 of whom were men. All had eating disorders.

The study found that all of the men took some time to realise that their behaviours were possible signs and symptoms of eating disorders. These behaviours included obsessive calorie counting , purging, not eating for days and exercising excessively.

Some of the men admitted to isolating themselves from others, while some took to self-harming.

The men said that one of the main reasons it took them so long to realise what was happening was down to the perception that eating disorders are women's problems, especially young women.

One of the participants said that he thought eating disorders were simply ‘something girls got', while another said he thought they only affected ‘fragile teenage girls'.

None of the men knew any symptoms related to eating disorders and even their loved ones, including family and friends, did not recognise the symptoms for some time. They assumed changes in behaviour were down to the choice of the person affected.

The men said they delayed seeking help because they did not know where to go, or were afraid they would not be taken seriously by healthcare staff.

They said they only really realised what was happening to them when they suffered some type of crisis or ended up in an emergency department (ED).

For those who entered the healthcare system, their experiences were often negative. One participant was told by his doctor to ‘man up', while others had to wait a long time to see a specialist. All noted that there was little or no literature aimed at men with eating disorders.

"Men with eating disorders are under-diagnosed, under-treated and under-researched. Our findings suggest that men may experience particular problems in recognising that they may have an eating disorder as a result of the continuing cultural construction of eating disorders as uniquely or predominantly a female problem," the researchers from the University of Oxford and Glasgow University said.

Details of their findings are published in the journal BMJ Open.