Men's Struggle With Body Image

“Bro’, you need to bulk up. In a fight you’d be snapped like a toothpick.” This saying and many similar ones are said daily throughout the world. To some, that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but to the boy with bulimia nervosa, the boy who spends hours every day in the gym, and to the boy who stops eating for wrestling, those words can mean a lot. Today our world is fixated on the perfect woman. Standards are set and if you don’t meet them, you become irrelevant. Now of course it is important to help women today not become obsessed with negative thoughts about their body, but to completely ignore the struggles men face with their body is heartless. All in all, men struggle with body image as well, some do things way worse than most women, but

instead of being surrounded by “love your body!” they constantly here they are “too weak” and “a sissy”.
To begin, the media plays a substantially sized role in how men view their bodies because of the constant portrayal of “ripped” men in pretty much everything. As Time magazine pointed out, the media affects everywhere. They pointed how when you're simply checking out, you get bombarded with magazines and tabloids showing perfect bodies of male celebrities. Another source of pressure is the internet. Everybody sees the seemingly harmless little advertisements in the corner about steroids for men to get all the ladies, but the underlying theme is that if you don’t look like the photoshopped man in that advertisement, you're body isn't good enough. The third biggest source of stress for men is our own television. For example, everybody knows of the show The Biggest Loser. I’m not saying that program is horrible, it’s great for people who want to lose weight! The problem is when Jillian Michaels pops on and is sitting next to the hard working men and women and are being hurtful. This obviously gives off a horrible example of what might occur when men become conscious of their body, leaving them with negative feelings. Overall, although the media can be a great thing, our society needs to rid it of the critical standards set for men.
Continuing on, exposing what has been a big influence on men with body image problems; other men.

“Man up!” “Grow a pair!” “Don’t be such a wimp!” are all things said from one man to another man almost always somewhere in the world. These words all give being skinny, being non-muscular, and being non-masculine negative connotations, though in reality, they are all just normal things many men are! Being all of those things have nothing to do with who one is as a man, and other men need to stop connecting the two. Many men resort to unfathomable things because of the way other men treat them and comment on their body. To summarize, pressure from the same gender is prevalent throughout society, and men needs to know that they don't have to look like a model as long as they are

happy.
Next, who many can say they feel is the biggest bully of them all, themselves and their minds. Men everywhere hate their bodies. According to NEDA, the National Eating Disorders Association, 43% of men are dissatisfied with their body, with a main reason being themselves convincing themselves they are not good enough. NEDA also reports some disturbing statistics about the males in America. Ten million men will develop some sort clinically significant eating disorder at some point in their life. They also report that approximately five million men will have EDNOS, or eating disorder not otherwise specified, three million will develop BED, or binge eating disorder, one million men will develop BN, or Bulimia Nervosa, and the remaining one million will develop AN, or the commonly know Anorexia Nervosa. To synopsize, many men torture themselves with Ed’s, or eating disorders, simply because they have convinced themselves they are inadequate men, forcing them into a lifetime of struggle.
Switching topics and getting to what is a huge part of our everyday lives, the influence of sex culture in our world.

To be blatant, sex is everywhere, which makes sex culture a phenomena. Over time, men, young men in particular, have made sex almost into a competition, instead of an act of love and pleasure for the person one is engaging in activity with. Women today also have sexulized every part of a male's body. Whether it’s a strong jawline, firm abs, or a nice butt, men seem to need to be perfect to please a women, or even another man if that is their preference. This is another example of of unattainable standards set for men and their bodies. Again, to be open, most people enjoy and want sex, obviously including men, but because bodies among both men and women have been sexualized, many men feel like they are not worthy of being “loved” so to speak, creating a harmful thought process for the man. In order to fight back, we must stop the sexualization of the “perfect body” and appreciate all body types in order to stay a healthy community full of body-confident

men.
In closing, it’s a rough world for the men who are facing pressure and negative thoughts from many influences. Whether it be in our media, from the influence of other men, from themselves, from possible mental illness, or from the sex culture that seems to be in everything, there is no denying the criticism men face surrounding their bodies. In order to end this, us as a whole need to start sharing our love with not only negatively self-conscious women, but also men because the pressure is there and it needs to end. Finally, to sum everything up in a few words from Daniel Farr, “It’s just as hard to be Ken as it is to be Barbie.”