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COPYRIGHT 2006 University of South Alabama
It is fairly well known that many women are dissatisfied with their body shape, most likely due to exposure to a media ideal of thinness (Stice, Schupak-Neuberg, Shaw, & Stein, 1994). In fact, this dissatisfaction with body shape has been termed a normative discontent (Brownell & Rodin, 1994). Normative discontent with body shape plays a role in the adoption of behaviors that can lead to the development of an eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa (Stice, 2002). College women appear to be at a high risk of developing an eating disorder (Worobey & Schoenfield, 1999), and studies (Harvard Medical School, 2002) indicate that around 60% of women in college have binged at least one time and 15% have purged.
Historically, men have been thought to be immune to the effects of media pressure, as they did not have the desire to be thinner (see Fallon & Rozin, 1985). However, it appears that the thin-to-obese continuum, which is of importance to women, is not the salient continuum with men. In recent years, the muscular male body has become as much of a commodity as the thin female body (see Pope, Olivardia, Boroweicki, & Cohane, 2001). The focus on a muscular physique has led to increasing importance of behaviors that can bring this about, most specifically lifting weights, and, potentially, an increase in the dissatisfaction men have with their body shape (Edwards & Launder, 2000). In addition, with the rising importance of male body shape and increase in body dissatisfaction has come a higher incidence rate of muscle dysmorphia (Pope, Phillips, & Olivardia, 2000), a disorder in which muscular men believe they are much smaller physically then they actually appear. Thus, weight gain behaviors for males may be as potentially problematic as weight loss behaviors in females.
Body dissatisfaction, contrary to past beliefs, also affects men. However, as compared to women, men who are dissatisfied with their bodies tend to want to gain, rather than lose weight. Men report a desire to be three pounds heavier; taller; and have wider shoulders, thicker arms and legs, and a thinner stomach (Wrobleska, 1997). Franco, Tamburrino, Carroll, and Bernal (1988) found that 20% of their sample was below their ideal body weight, and an additional 65% was within five percentage points (95% to 105%) of their ideal body weight. Drewnoski and Yee (1987) reported that while 45% of the men in their sample wanted to be thinner, 40% wanted to be heavier. Such a split in desires is most likely due to weight status. Normal weight and under weight men tend to want to gain weight (probably in the form of muscle mass) and overweight men want to lose weight (Raudenbush & Zellner, 1997). Some researchers (Lynch & Zellner, 1999) have suggested that using the thin-to-obese continuum for body image assessment does not fully capture the pressures for men. They suggest a need for an evaluation of a thin-to-muscular continuum.
In addition, the commercial value of the male body appears to be growing. Since the mid-1980s, the ideal male body has become more muscular and "dense" (Pope, Olivardia, Gruber, & Borowiecki, 1999). This ideal body has been shown more often in the popular media than in the past (Pope et al., 2001) so that men are now starting to feel the same type of pressures as women to conform to a body shape that is, for the most part, unattainable (Lynch & Zellner, 1999). Thus, societal pressures for men are not to be unattainably thin but, rather, to be unattainably muscular. Further, when men are exposed to pictures of models who exhibit the socially ideal muscular body shape, they report a decrease in their satisfaction with their own bodies (Lorenzen, Grieve, & Thomas, 2004).
In fact, there has been a recent focus on muscle dysmorphia in men (c.f., Pope, Phillips, & Olivardia, 2000). Muscle dysmorphia is classified as a sub-category of Body Dysmorphic Disorder; however, it is a disorder that straddles both anxiety disorders and eating disorders. It is characterized by a chronic preoccupation with body shape, which occurs in conjunction with changes in eating and exercise practices that are similar to those seen in women with Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa (Pope, Gruber, Choi, Olivardia, & Phillips, 1997).
Even though societal pressures toward the ideal body...
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