Tori Amos once sang, "You're only popular with anorexia."
Last week, the Rocky Horror "Glee" episode addressed the issue of male body image, and this week, I'm doing the same. To generalize and simplify, the intersection of the male body and consumer culture has "feminized" the male, cisgendered experience in terms of increased anxiety over appearance. A shift has occurred in the conception of the ideal male body. The quintessence of attractiveness and masculinity now equals an intense musculature.
Underwear ads, for example, exclusively display muscled men, while magazines like Men's Health teach us "The easy way to hard abs" and how to "Fight fat & win!"
The media bombard us with images of ideal masculinity as manifested in the chiseled and sculpted bodies of valorized men. Even the toy industry has responded accordingly. Much in the same that the Barbie's measurements fail to represent realistic female bodies, G.I. Joe has bulked up over the years to unconceivable proportions. In this way, the male body has joined the sphere of the female one, which has been historically under scrutiny and policing.
Our current society favoring the younger, the fitter and the beefier has exaggerated a male vanity from which several industries profit. Sectors like the diet industry that have historically catered to the female market are now reaching out to the male population. So now, vampiric consumerism, preying on men's insecurities just as it once mainly targeted those of women, extracts money from the rich reserve of consumers in the market for products that control and augment the male body.
This cultural atmosphere most likely plays a role in the increase of disorders dealing with body image in men. According to the 1997 American Journal of Psychiatry, men account for 10 to 15 percent of those with anorexia or bulimia. Women are still much more likely to develop these types of disorders, though.
The 1995 journal reports the highest mortality rate among individuals with eating disorders in comparison to those with any other mental illness. Other literature from the '90s reports that as many as 10 million females and one million males had an eating disorder at that time.
However, in the case of muscle dysmorphia, also called reverse anorexia, mostly males suffer from this type of body dysmorphic disorder. These individuals perceive their bodies as too small and lacking in muscle. Muscle dysmorphics may take steroids and incessantly over−exercise to gain muscle. Recently, the United Kingdom's media spotlight dealing with the condition has been on rugby players, who face intense pressure to bulk up in order to get on a team. Because of the pressures on the body, male and female athletes alike are likely to develop muscle dysmorphia.
Yet the literature has overlooked the realm of disorders related to male body image, as these problems have been gendered as women's issues. This problematic gendering occurs throughout the field of medicine — the male body studied as the norm is rarely criticized or addressed although people insist upon biological differences — and results in a stigma that makes men disinclined to seek help or realize they may need help. Also, the male world in general mediates an individualistic attitude, a reluctance to seek help. Furthermore, the gendering silences discussion among men and even between men and their doctors, who are less likely to diagnose body dysmorphic disorders in men.
Therefore, males suffering from any of the above−mentioned conditions often have to navigate through a lack of support and care. These problems with body image cross gender lines just as traits of conventional constructions of masculinity and femininity overlap across the gender spectrum. A commitment to a gender binary, problematic in and of itself, should not blind us from properly addressing issues, particularly body dysmorphic disorders in men.
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Elisha Sum is a senior majoring in English and French. He can be reached at Elisha.Sum@tufts.edu.
