Body Image Issues Don’t Just Affect Women
Women are not the only ones that feel pressure from society to look a certain way. Men are expected to be tough, feel no emotion, and look like a crossover between the cover models of GQ Magazine and Men’s Health. Plugged in, electronic access to media outlets is more prevalent than ever before. This means it seems sometimes impossible for a man to escape the societal pressures he feels concerning his body image.
Some men are shy about revealing their “size” in the bedroom. Is my wife talking to her friends about my manhood being undersized? Is my partner going to go somewhere else because I am not as big “down there” as I should be? Should I just leave the lights off before I take of my clothes in the bedroom? These are actual conversations some men have with themselves regarding their natural endowment.
Men often feel body image pressure from their wife or partner.
In most cases, this is intentional. A husband may hear his wife or girlfriend talking innocently about his “spare tire” to a girlfriend. This simple snippet of normal conversation can lead a man to fad diets and even starvation in an attempt to conform to an impossibly perfect physical picture painted by advertisers trying to sell products.
If you are a man who is unhappy with your body image, you are not alone. As it turns out, you may have been getting the wrong signals about your body image ever since childhood.
A report issued in The Atlantic shows that even the toys boys receive put pressure on young men to be exceptionally muscular. Though 1 one or 2 men per 100 actually look like this, research from JAMA pediatrics shows that nearly 18% of young boys are overly concerned about their body weight and how muscular they are.
Coupled with societal pressure to have the perfect body, this distorted body image fueled by the mass media means men can easily become unnecessarily concerned about how they look. This can lead to muscle dysmorphia, heart conditions and other physical problems created by crash diets, as well as a host of mental issues.
Fortunately, there is an answer. By understanding the pressures you may feel as a male to look a certain way, you can develop a healthy body image. Let’s take a closer look at this troubling problem, beginning with specific body image issues that some men have.
Body Image Issues that Affect Men
Bonnie Brennan is a certified eating disorder specialist with the Adult Partial Hospitalization Program for the Eating Recovery Center in Denver, Colorado. She points out that the images of males in the media are “… increasingly hairless, displaying six pack abs, bulging biceps and no fat on their bodies”.
But whoever decided this is how men should look?
The answer is simple … people trying to sell you their products. Manufacturers use sex and muscles to sell, trying to get you to believe if your body matches a particular image, you will be eternally happy, wealthy and successful, just like the movie stars and celebrities they use to sell their products.
This can lead to the following common body image issues that affect many men today…
- Unhealthy dieting approaches
- Bullying of others that are physically imperfect in their eyes
- Concern about not being muscular enough
- Inability to have healthy relationships
- A feeling of being fat
- A feeling of being skinny
- Causing physical damage by over-exercising
- Upset over having bodily hair
- Constant feeling of failing as a man
- Embarrassment over freckles, moles
- Concern their penis is too small
- Taking harmful performance-enhancing drugs
- Equating a “perfect body” with life satisfaction
- Harmful stress conditions caused by constant worry
These are just a few of the body image issues a lot of men are faced with today. In almost every case, the fear over some bodily imperfection was caused by an outside source. You wish you could lose your love handles because you see fit men cavorting on television with beautiful women. Your favorite reality show is full of young, sexy, attractive and incredibly fit men and women.
These outside influences naturally, but unduly, cause you to question your own physical makeup. This can lead to dangerous crash diets, steroid abuse and other “magic bullet” pursuits of the perfect body.
Even if you make significant changes in the shape and appearance of your body, this desire of perfection is never satisfied. You begin to see physical abnormalities which are not there, this leads to further negative body image thoughts, and you never feel good about yourself.
Remember, it is okay to struggle with your appearance. This is a human issue, not a female issue. Human beings are imperfect. Your body is going to be imperfect, and while there is certainly nothing wrong with wanting to become fit and healthy, it should never become an obsession based on someone else’s idea of how you should look.
The Problem with Steroids and Excessive Exercise to Gain or Lose Weight
Turning to chemicals for a quick body image change is never the smart solution. Alternately, you can shorten your lifespan, harm yourself in the short term, and even do internal physical damage if you exercise excessively. Steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) are used to bulk up and build muscle quickly. They also shred fat, and give you that bodybuilder look.
The problem is that they create a long list of dangerous and even deadly side effects. Here are just a few of the harmful side effects of steroids:
- Some men develop breasts, not the muscular, firm, strong breasts they were hoping for
- Your risk of developing some cancers is increased dramatically
- Your chances of a heart attack increase
- A shortened lifespan
- Allergic reactions
- Skin discoloration
- Weakened bones, tendons and ligaments
- Blurred vision
- Difficulty sleeping
- Weight gain (fat, not muscle)
- Osteoporosis
- Drastic mood swings
- Increased risk of Diabetes
Exercising too much can be a result, or a cause of, muscle dysmorphia. Referred to commonly in the gym as bigorexia, this is a psychological disorder “marked by a negative body image and an obsessive desire to have a muscular physique.”
This psychological disorder is sometimes brought on by a lifetime of pressure from mass media to look a particular way. Over-exercising causes both short-term and long-term problems, as discussed above. Too much strenuous exercise has been linked with a shorter lifespan. In the short-term, physical and mental injuries and problems often accompany excessive exercise.
Both steroids and over-exercising may deliver the short-term results you are looking for. You can either add or remove body weight, pack on the muscle and shred the fat. But neither one of these efforts to create the perfect body image deals with the problem at hand … your attempts to create a physical appearance that you feel forced to achieve by society.
How Men Can Talk About Body Image Issues
Tyler Kingkade is a Senior Editor and reporter with The Huffington Post. He bravely wrote a post that Huffington published in August 2015, detailing his own problems with a negative body image. It is titled “I’m A Man, And I’ve Spent My Life Ashamed Of My Body”. What he found was that more women than men responded to his “no holds barred” revelation of a lifetime of concern over his body.
Women consistently stated that they simply didn’t know men had body image issues. This is the one big problem facing men who would like to openly talk about their body image thoughts and concerns. Society does not openly promote men being concerned about how they look.
(That blog post can be read in its entirety at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/male-body-image_55cb5fd2e4b0923c12bec79a)
If you are fostering negative body image issues in your life, understand that it’s okay to talk about them. Women openly complain about not being able to lose weight and not looking like a cover girl model. Men should not feel any differently. The only way you will ever reclaim a healthy feeling about your body is if you talk about it with other men.
Join a local or online body image support group. Understand that the stigma about feeling less than happy with your body image as a man is incorrect. Anyone should be able to discuss his or her feelings. If you don’t know someone to talk to personally, why not put your feelings on your blog or website? You will be pleased to find that a lot of other men feel exactly the same way you do, and simply talking about your problem is a huge relief.
How Men Can Feel Better About Their Bodies
The NBC Today Show, along with AOL, conducted a body image survey in 2014. Some startling statistics that study revealed are listed below.
- 63% of the respondents claimed they “always feel” like they could lose some weight.
- 41% of the men polled said they constantly worry that other people are judging their appearance.
- 53% felt uncertain or unhappy about their appearance at least once a week.
Why are those findings important? Because it lets you know that you are not alone.
Talking to Others
Sometimes the best way to feel better about your body is to simply find someone to talk to about your feelings. There is a good chance you have a friend or family member who has developed a negative body image as well. Talk with those around you, build a support group, and you may find you are worrying about something that really isn’t a problem at all.
Healthy Exercise
Another way you can feel better about your body is to get some exercise. A lot of people these days live very sedentary lifestyles. If you have a desk job and a long commute, a significant portion of your life is spent sitting on your butt. The dangers of sitting are now commonly known, and include heart problems, obesity, poor circulation and even a shorter lifespan than those who do not sit so much.
Exercise also boosts your mental outlook. Oxygen is pumped to all parts of your body, including your brain. This physical exertion releases hormones and other chemicals that trigger your mental pleasure center. This means that even if your exercise has a minimum impact on how you look physically, you will still feel better than if you didn’t exercise at all.
Skip the Sugar to Feel Better About Your Body
Refined, processed sugar is a killer which is not required in your diet. Healthy sugar is found in sufficient quantities in natural foods. Many nutritionists and health experts believe sugar is the leading cause of overweight and obesity in the world.
It is treated as a simple carb and stored as fat. Sugar is also a great preservative and sweetener, extremely cheap for manufacturers, so it finds its way into a lot of processed food. Begin removing sugar from your diet today and you will feel better about your body tomorrow.
Take a Look at What You Eat
Sugar is not the only silent body image killer in your diet. If you enjoy a lot of processed foods, you increase your risk of being unhealthy, inside and out. Eating more whole fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats and healthy fats and fewer processed foods can have you feeling and looking better, physically and mentally, in a very short period of time.
Just remember – if you are about to eat a food that comes in some type of package or wrapper, it has undergone some type of processing. Limit fast foods, baked goods, fried foods, foods with salt, monosodium glutamate (MSG) and trans fats and start eating healthier foods.
Skip the Sodas and Energy Drinks
There is a better way to keep yourself energized than reaching for a can of unhealthy, “pick-me-up” beverage. Energy drinks and sodas often deliver all the sugar your body requires in an entire day. Man-made flavors, preservatives, chemicals and other unhealthy components are in high quantities as well. Trade water or unsweetened tea for those drinks which are packing on the pounds and fat that make you upset about your body image.
Remind Yourself That Media Pressure Is Unrealistic
Look around you. Do more men look like you, or like the “perfect” people Hollywood and advertisers point to as what you should strive to be like? Bulging biceps and six pack abs are not the norm. In some cases, they are achieved through performance-enhancing drugs and other unhealthy activities.
Talk to yourself about what is great in your life, the wonderful things you have achieved and appreciate on a daily basis. Remember that if you chase the “perfect body”, you will never achieve it. You will always be striving for some bigger and better result. Take the steps to become healthy and happy that we just mentioned. This will improve your physical and mental states, and lessen the chance that you fall prey to a negative body image that was only created to sell products.
