David Reitan realizes that evaluating your body’s worth against that of a total stranger is a silly, unproductive thing to do. Yet he does it anyway—along with a lot of other men.
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The elevator doors shut and I’m immediately sizing up the pair of calves belonging to the man across from me. From my lifeguard stand each Wednesday morning, I compare the chest sizes of office executives as they complete their swim. At some other point I am wondering how my strength is matched against the waiter or the bank teller or the actor in the TV commercial.
I’m bigger.
I’m smaller.
I could compete with the mail guy but get destroyed by the policeman.
The game of “body tic-tac-toe” goes on.
Since summer brings higher temperatures and less clothing because of it, these comparisons happened more times then I might know. I’m not exactly sure as to why I would feel compelled to do so. It’s a silly, unproductive thing to do, evaluating your body’s worth against that of a total stranger. Yet plenty of men do it anyway.
I think body image is just as relevant of an issue for guys as it is for women. But I get the sense that society might not think so; women are suppose to be concerned with their shape and appearances, not guys. Right?
Spend some time in a high school locker room and you’re sure to get a different impression. Guys—including myself—are just as obsessive with their physical appearance as any woman, and often with a not-so-subtle competitive intention. I doubt the phrase “How much do you bench?” is ever used out of complete, objective intrigue.
There are ways for men to have a more positive attitude about their bodies, and it starts with educating ourselves on a few crucial points:
- Everyone’s Body is Different. This is a message that we hear all too often, yet is worth repeating. There is a lot about our appearance that we cannot change because we might not be genetically programmed to look like the Calvin Klein models. It’s O.K. if you never have that washboard stomach.
- Personal Health is Personal. What might be healthy for me may not be for another man. Again, individual genetics are playing a role here; a person might not be able to lose, gain, or maintain weight as easily as somebody else and there’s not much to do about it short of intense exercise, rigorous dieting, and/or invasive surgery. Besides, there’s loads more a person could do to be healthier other than dropping five pounds (as if that was a cinch).
Plus, it’s utter nonsense to assume that we all have the same priorities when it comes to our health. The main assumption these days is that in order for men to be healthy they need to have more lean muscle mass than a 1980s superhero. But make sure not to be that big otherwise they will become overweight and thus at risk.
Here is one more societal idea that is completely wrong: weight as the barometer for health. A person’s weight does not determine how healthy they are. There are a plethora of other factors that play a role in a person’s health. Once that’s made clear it becomes obvious just how arbitrary the BMI scale is. According to the BMI, there is a number that indicates how much you weigh, thereby determining how healthy you are: the lower the number the healthier. By this logic, a person with a BMI of 20 who is going through chemotherapy is much more fit than a heavyweight boxer with a BMI of 29. Plus, if two men happen to have the same BMI, 26 for example, at which point they are classified as “overweight,” but one of those men is an NFL linebacker, would anybody really go so far as to say the football player is unhealthy?
Still, men are going to want to work-out (I know I will), but it’s important that it’s for a purpose other than to “get ripped fast.” Fortunately, there is such a thing as exercising out of self-love. Women seem to be doing it already and it’s time men joined up.
- The Media Uses Male Form as a Sexual Object. In the recent past, there was a lot of needed attention on how Photoshop negatively affects girls’ attitudes towards their own bodies. Since sex and health and body image are so tightly linked, it’s easy to see why a “sexy body” (toned, hairless, fit) could be equated with one that is “healthy” (toned, fit, etc.). In this regard, what is true for women is equally true for men: Men’s bodies are used in the media as sexual objects that set unobtainable standards of what is “healthy.”
A production army armed with make-up, lighting designs, and post-production software goes into every billboard ad, music video, and big-budget film to make some perfect image of what a guy should look like. It honestly gets to the point that the man in the picture doesn’t even resemble the real person. None of those pictures do. They are fake, and all men—including me—should not feel obligated to hold ourselves to these standards.
Instead, let’s explore what we like about ourselves and concentrate on that.
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Photo: walkadog / flickr
David Reitan. Thank you for pointing out an important issue which is an important empowerment issue for men.