Male Anxiety Among College Students

Hundreds of thousands of students among college campuses suffer from anxiety each year. Higher education can be a fun but there is a lot more that goes into school that people subconsciously don’t recognize. Anxiety can be defined as ones thought or distress that causes a physical feeling resulting in a particular behavior. Anxiety is different for each college student, generally speaking there is one umbrella over all college students adapting to a new place, then within brings smaller umbrellas for girls facing self image is most common, for boys more prominent anxiety of fitting in amongst peers, lastly there is the anxiety umbrella of school itself and performance. After High School graduation many travel two hundred to five hundred miles

Anxiety occurs throughout ones life in many different situations, in this situation; women versus male anxiety in college roots differently. Anxiety among college women often involves self-image among their friends and peers. An article by Brittney Schrick states on the how this anxiety effects collegiate women by “Extending beyond emotional management, objectification is typically embodied in college women’s perceptions of their bodies, and objectification can be seen as a distortion of the identity of an individual.” This I believe is a sensitive time for women not only are they dealing with the stress of school itself, this anxiety can becomes their main focus. Schrick also shines light on the serious effects of self-image anxiety, “Research has indicated that a considerable proportion of U.S. college women struggle with body image issues, disordered eating, self-doubt, and inequality in romantic relationships (Piran and Cormier 2005; Swim et al. 2010). The effect of the unrealistic expectations of body image has lead to many eating disorders, such as anorexia or bulimia. I found some statistics to show just how prominent this anxiety has lead to both mental and physical disorders. Walden Center for Education and Research states 15% of women 17 to 24 have eating disorders, 20% of college students said they have or previously had had an eating disorders, and 91% of female college students have attempted to control their weight through dieting. These numbers are the highest for collegiate aged women as they are the most vulnerable. When it comes to males their anxiety is rooted from a different stem. Collegiate males may have some anxiety about self-image they have higher anxiety with fitting in or acceptance. Ayres and Bristow studied showed “AN-like students reported more difficulties in their interaction with males (SDQ-Opposite Sex Relations) compared to