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The Rapid Growth of The Male Body Image Issue

Nathan White
James Madison University
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Abstract
Most people have only known females to have body image issues, but in the past decade, there

has been a massive spike in males who have developed body image dissatisfaction issues, and

other mental illnesses that accompany it. There are many different levels of severity to which

researchers have classified people with this issue, and their methodology ensures that the results

are valid for using to document this issue properly. There are also many causes of this issue; the

biggest and most influential one being the media. Also noted are the differing ways that males

think about “ideal” body image compared to how females see it. Communicating to people who

can help those who have this issue is incredibly important, as this is an issue that needs to be put

to a stop as soon as we possibly can.

Keywords: male, body image, muscle dysmorphia, scale, depression

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The Rapid Growth Of The Male Body Image Issue

The question of whether or not males have body image issues is a very interesting, and at

times a controversial one. On the surface, most males appear confident, in charge, and proud of

the person they are- or at least how they present themselves in public. But on the inside, some

males are constantly wondering, and even obsessing about how they look and are perceived by

others. Over the past decade or so, the prevalence of males who are dissatisfied with their body

image has sky- rocketed. This makes 2018 a very important year; the issue is becoming more

wide spread, along with the depressive side effects that come along with it. Many people who

have been linked to this issue have also been linked to depression and other harmful side effects,

such as eating disorders or other high-risk behaviors. This problem must come to a halt before it

affects any more males.

The first source used to prove the significance and prevalence of this issue was

“Validation Of a Six-Item Male Body Image Concern Scale”, authored by Dr. Hannah Weisman,

Dr. Elaine Patten, and Dr. Marcus Montanez-Leaks in 2014. Their purpose for writing this

journal was to show the relationship between negative body image in males and the subsequent

disordered eating habits and depressive symptoms; both of which can lead to long term health

issues, some even resulting in death. They educate about the issue using actual statistical

evidence that they derived from a study they did prior to writing this journal. The audience that

would find this information useful is psychologists or medical professionals who work with

those who suffer from this issue. The study used by these three authors to derive the data used

questions pertaining to how one might perceive themselves, then based on their answers, they

were divided up into 6 different classes of body image concern. The results were staggering;

21% of healthy weight males were placed in level 6, which is the highest level of concern.
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Another 13% were placed in level 5, garnering attention from the authors; “34% of the males we

chose to participate are at severely high risk for depression, even though there is nothing actually

wrong about their physicality…” (p. 421). Patten, who was focused more on the eating habit

questions, said that “roughly 50% of the participants” struggled with “high risk eating

behaviors”, such as bulimia or starving themselves. This is a very valuable source because it is

tailored to the group that the issue hits the most; males between the ages of 16 and 22.

Montanez-Leaks emphasized that “male body image ideals differ from female body image

ideals”, and that it is essential to not combine them. Although the journal covers the issue very

extensively, one weakness was that the sample size of the study was only 50, which is considered

quite small when applying the results to the whole population. To fix this weakness, they could

recruit more males, or they could scale it differently and add a more diverse group of people.

The second source that was used in analyzing this problem is Dr. Peggy Drexler’s “The

Impact Of Negative Body Image On Boys”, which was written in 2013. The purpose of this

article is to give real life narratives of young men who struggle with their body image. Drexler is

attempting to reach the population that actually have a body image issue, as they might find help

by relating to these narratives. She first starts off by telling the story about Jeff, who was “a

former fat kid, who started worrying about his body in 8th grade when he did not start losing the

fat that others were losing,” (Paragraph 2). Then, she proceeds to talk about a young male named

Neil, who started lifting weights to get in shape for baseball, but “eventually became obsessed

with making sure he looked good…causing him to quit the baseball team,” (Paragraph 5). The

narratives she tells are a very powerful resource to go more in depth to the problem, instead of

just using a statistic. Drexler also focuses on the media’s role in creating a distorted ideal male

body image; “On a daily basis, boys are inundated with images of a beefy sort of masculinity,
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from the guys of the Jersey Shore, whose collective abs inspired their own line of workout

DVDs, to Hollywood hunks like Channing Tatum,” (Drexler, 2013). She also uses examples of

fashion magazines, and the classic Ken and Barbie comparison. Drexler’s article parallels the

first source in many ways. Weisman, Patten, and Montanez-Leaks’ "Validation of a Six-Item

Male Body Image Concern Scale" and Peggy Drexler's "The Impact of Negative Body Image on

Boys" both strongly support the notion that the male body image issue is becoming prevalent at a

very high rate. According to Weisman, "Males may feel pressure to gain weight, lose weight, or

gain muscle mass, which can lead to low body image... Further symptoms of this can include

depressive symtomatology, which can lead to high risk behaviors" ( p.421). Weisman makes the

point that males are very diverse in what they want their ideal body to be; this drive causes males

to go off the deep end. Going along with what Weisman said, Drexler states, "According to the

National Mental Health Association... more and more boys are report being concerned with, or at

times obsessed, with how they look" (Paragraph 3). The point Drexler is making is that when it

gets obsessive, that's when people should start taking notice of this serious issue. Both Weisman

and Drexler discuss how the prevalence of male body image dissatisfaction went unnoticed for

so long, but now it cannot be ignored. Also, Drexler points out that, “According to the Pediatrics

study, 38% of middle and high school boys use protein supplements and 6% admit to have

experimented with steroids” (Paragraph 7). In one of the studies that Weisman used to gather

data in the first source, supplement use (illegal or legal) was one of the criteria that placed males

in their respective categories. A glaring weakness of this article is that it is very short and

sometimes informal. More narratives could have been added to enforce the importance of the

issue.
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The third source used to analyze this issue is “A Multidimensional Scaling Analysis of

Male Body Perception in Men With Muscle Dysmorphia”, which was authored by Dr. Deana

Danilova, Dr. George Diekhoff, and Dr. Michael Vandehey in 2013. The article’s purpose is to

add another dimension to the topic by introducing a mental illness known as Muscle Dysmorphia

(MD), which has proven to be a major factor to the ongoing male body image issue. MD, as it is

defined by Danilova, is “a disorder in which men are preoccupied with the idea that their bodies

are insufficiently lean or muscular” (Danilova, 2013, p. 83). The audience that this article

pertains to is medical professionals who are working with those who struggle with body

dissatisfaction; MD could be a possible answer to their problem. The writers do an excellent job

of focusing on the behavior patterns and mindset that people with this disorder might have. This

source is great for synthesizing information because it used hard evidence that backed the theory

of low MD vs. high MD behavioral discrepancy. Danilova claims that, “Both low and high MD

men displayed some distance between their actual and ideal bodies, but the actual-ideal gap was

significantly greater for high-MD men” (p. 97). This source concurs with Weisman’s journal, as

Diekhoff states, “men experience immense pressure to develop and maintain a muscular body…

which can lead to body dissatisfaction and body image distortion, both of which are signs of

MD” ( p. 84). This quote shows parallels to “Validation of a Six-Item Male Body Image Concern

Scale” by showing that body dissatisfaction can lead to a secondary mental illness, such was the

case with disordered eating in the first source. These two sources are also similar in the fashion

that they both put participants in a certain category based on how severe their body

dissatisfaction was. The third source also complies well with “The Impact of Negative Body

Image on Boys”. Danilova points out that, “The ideal male body image is growing steadily more

muscular…each generation of action figures (e.g. GI Joe, Iron Man, Batman) is consistently
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more muscular than their predecessors” (p. 84). This directly parallels with Drexler’s argument

that the media is growing this masculine ideal image. Vandehey also tells us, in the third source,

that “individuals with MD are preoccupied with the idea that they are not sufficiently lean and

muscular…this preoccupation with body shape is persistent and causes significant impairment or

distress in daily functioning” (p. 84). This assertion agrees with the narrative from Drexler’s

article about the boy who stopped playing baseball because of his obsession with how he looked.

One major weakness from this journal is that a good chunk of the writing was on the statistical

conventions they used to derive their information, not on the data itself. Nevertheless, it gave

great insight to the MD issue.

Through the analyzation of these three sources, I learned that there are many symptoms

past the standard depression seen with this issue. MD and disordered eating caught my eye, not

only from a research perspective, but because they are very serious, and need to be put to a halt.

My take on the issue is that it is most definitely a major problem for males in a society that is so

consumed with this ideal masculine image. People with this issue think they can fix it by

obsessively working out or doing other harmful things to their bodies, but in reality, this is just

hurting them more. Through my research, I learned that this is actually a much bigger issue than

I originally thought it was. My research was effective in that it provided new insight and context

to an already on-going issue. Male body image issues exist through many different psychological

platforms, and it must be addressed before it becomes any worse.

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Works Cited:

1. Danilova, D., Diekhoff, G.M., Vandehey, M.A. (2013). “A Multidimensional

Scaling Analysis of Male Body Perception in Men with Muscle Dysmorphia.”
International Journal of Men’s Health, 12(2), p. 83-105.
http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=ba9c2de5-5268-
441f-be7e-e80f4a379331%40sessionmgr4006
2. Drexler, P. (2013). “The Impact of Negative Body Image on Young Boys.”

Psychology Today; Our Gender, Ourselves.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/our-gender-ourselves/201301/the-

impact-negative-body-image-boys

3. Weisman, H., Patten, E., & Montanez-Leaks, M. (2014). “Validation of a Six-

Item Male Body Image Concern Scale.” Eating Disorders, 22(5), p. 420-431.

http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=8e64d623-7836-

4c3c-ae94-07ad82a43a5a%40sessionmgr4008
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