Does this Shirt Make Me Look Big…Enough? Looking at Male Body Image
Regan A. R. Gurung, Darryl D. D. Teske, Joshua S. Bastinello
University of Wisconsin, Green Bay
ABSTRACT
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
We looked at attitudes of 94 men regarding health and relationships. We did not
find any relationships between social physique anxiety, body esteem, social support
or relationship when compared to workout hours and supplement usage. Physique
anxiety was related to relationship quality. Male physique anxiety was similar to
female levels taken from a separate study.
METHOD
Men (N=94) from different area gyms and the campus sports center filled
out questionnaires assessing Social Physique Anxiety, Body Esteem,
Social Support, and Relationship Quality, workout hours and supplement
usage. Mean age was 30 years.
0
-0.05
-0.1
-0.15
-0.2
-0.25
-0.3
-0.35
Body Anxiety
-0.4
-0.45
-0.5
Commit
100
95
90
85
80
75
70
65
60
55
50
Intimacy
Sun.
Sat.
Fri.
Hours
Thurs.
Satisfac
Wed.
Esteem
Mon.
The subject of female body image and its consequences has been
under the microscope for more than twenty years (Thompson, 2002).
Given the powers of social influence, the media have been under fire for
constantly bombarding young girls with images that lead them to believe
one body type is more beautiful than another. Is the same true for men?
There are many myths about gender ideals of body anxiety and
satisfaction. One of the biggest myths is that men are not as dissatisfied
with their bodies as women are. According to Cash and Brown (1989),
both sexes perceived women as holding more negative body attributes
than that of men, but this is not always true in reality. A number of studies
(e.g., Buckley, Yesalis, Friedl, Anderson, Streit, & Wright, 1988) suggest
that body anxiety can no longer be viewed as simply a female problem.
The number of messages concerning physical activity in men’s
magazines has increased from 1960-1992 suggesting that men have an
increasing pressure to be involved in fitness activity and unhealthy bodychanging practices (Petrie et al., 1996).Men who abuse steroids may be
similar to women with eating disorders (Blouin & Goldfield, 1995;
Drewnowski, Kurth, & Krahn, 1995). Consequently, Pope, Philips, and
Olivardia (2000) put forth the idea of the Adonis Complex.
The Adonis Complex is when men are so obsessed with the
“ideal” body they are willing to go to any lengths in order to get it. This
includes incessant workouts and even the use of anabolic steroids. The
authors used case studies to show that men sacrifice many things,
including their own health in the quest to get bigger and stronger, and
present this as a growing phenomenon that affects every man that steps
foot in a gym. Is this an empirical reality? The present study aims to shed
more light on male body image by assessing male fitness club members.
Tues.
INTRODUCTION
None of the body image measures, nor any of the relationship
quality measures were significantly related to how long the men
worked out or whether they used supplements. Average time
worked out per day of the week is shown below.
Contrary to recent media coverage, and studies such as that
establishing the Adonis Complex, men who worked out more
were not any more likely to have poor quality personal
relationships or poor social support. One-way analyses of
variance showed no relationships comparing body anxiety or
amount of workout time between men that were in committed
relationships and those that were not. Ironically, male levels of
social physique anxiety were similar to those of a control group
of women (from a separate study) suggesting that although men
and women may have similar body issues, this does not
manifest itself in excessive physical activity. Nonetheless,
social physique anxiety was significantly related to different
aspects of relationship quality as shown in the adjoining figure.
It is likely that body image issues for men play out in other
ways beyond hours exercised.
Presented at the 2004 American Psychological Society’s Annual Conference. Chicago IL. Email gurungr@uwgb.edu for more details.