Poised to catch a wayward dumbbell with the ease that comes from years of training, John Simisim, a personal trainer and Mount Royal University student, offers his last client of the day words of encouragement while he paces the weightlifting room.
You can find Simisim at the gym almost everyday either working or training with a dedication to his body that envelopes his life, from education to career.
He knows first hand how the desire to improve yourself can be a salvation just as easily as it can take over your life.
“I was a sick child,” he said. “I draw illness like I’m an illness magnet because I had tuberculosis.”
“Even now I have asthma, I was hospitalized three times because of the shut down of my immune system. I was in and out of the hospital, which is really tough.”
Born in the Philippines, Simisim lived on a farm with his family. As his health improved over time, he began to struggle with body dysmorphia which led him to constantly push himself to build more muscle mass.
“I thought, I’m going to die because I was so skinny.”
Struggling young men
From advertising to social media, women face considerable pressure to look a certain way. However, rarely do we talk about the same societal pressures that affect young men.
A study published in 2023 by Body Image concluded that Muscular Dysphoria (MD), a subset of body dysphoria wherein the fixation is on gaining as much muscle mass as possible, was prevalent in men.
The study notes that out of men, women, and transgender/gender nonconforming individuals, 17 per cent were at risk of developing MD. The research also showed that out of the 17 per cent on the cusp of MD, over a quarter were men.
After graduating high school, Simisim moved to Manila to pursue a degree in tourism and hospitality but became a personal trainer after going through a transformation of his own.
He began to work out extensively and as he started to see the results he wanted, he found that the body goals he set for himself moved further away from what was naturally possible.
“The reason why I got into fitness was because I just want to live longer. That’s my main reason. I think I was 14 at the time when I started lifting weights. I was just fragile and weak and I didn’t want to feel that anymore,” said Simisim.
Simisim struggled with accepting his body and found himself devoting a majority of his time fixating on looking like the muscular men on social media. This manifested in physical achievement, but it also led to an unhealthy fixation on his body image.
“Body dysmorphia exists and I can attest to that because the reason why I have body dysmorphia is because I’m a competitive person, especially in bodybuilding.”
While in Manila, Simisim excelled in helping clients reach their fitness goals. Dedicating himself to fitness, he came to Canada to study physical literacy.
A difficult diagnoses
Dan Devoe, an assistant professor of psychology at Mount Royal University, researches the difference between excessive exercise and the different types of eating disorders, primarily in youth.
Diagnosing eating disorders in men is difficult for medical practitioners and mental health professionals alike due to the lack of research compared to women.
“There’s been a push to look at men more in depth but still there seems to be a gap or they’re difficult to identify,” said Devoe. “If you’re difficult to identify, you’re difficult to treat.”
“The things that you typically see in men, you’ll see eating disorder profiles like anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating disorder, but you’ll also see other things in terms of body dysmorphia, like bigorexia,” said Devoe
Societal factors affect both men and women but the lack of awareness from men themselves about the prevalence of eating disorders and body dysmorphia can hinder recovery. Without awareness, a young adolescent male who may have an eating disorder or body dysmorphia may never know it.
Now settled in Calgary, Simisim continues to excel in marathons and bodybuilding competitions, and his education has equipped him with the tools to understand some of the darker motivations that drive some men to commit to going to the gym.
Simisim urges young men interested in body improvement to take caution online and not be swayed by some influencers who claim to gain rapid muscle mass naturally. Often, these influencers abuse performance enhancing drugs to maintain a physique that is unrealistic to strive for.
“It’s not just about brute force. You need to be smart about it before you even plan to win the game,” said Simisim. “Learn the system. Learn. Google is free. There’s so much information out there. Just make sure that what you’re looking at is peer reviewed.”