Men concerns of their appearance. One consequence of the continual evaluation of sex roles is that men are concerned as never before with their appearance.
How widespread is this phenomenon? Do you see men in your age group focusing on these interests? Should marketers change how they think of male sex roles today?
Surveys on male body image found that 20 percent to 40 percent of men were unhappy with some aspect of their looks, including physical appearance, weight, and muscle size and tone.
Those feelings spilled into their health and sex lives, as well.
Many straight and gay men, for example, reported exercising (55 percent and 57 percent, respectively) and dieting (29 percent and 37 percent, respectively) to lose weight in the past year.
Twenty percent of straight men and 39 percent of gay men reported trying to hide one aspect of their bodies during sex, usually their bellies.
David Frederick, assistant professor of psychology at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and the study’s lead author, said men’s body image is an issue that gets overlooked.
The study was published online by the journal Psychology of Men & Masculinity.
Gender differences in “body dissatisfaction” are shrinking, likely because of media influence, said Rick Gardner, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Colorado, Denver.
“Men are increasingly bombarded by messages related to weight and fitness,” Gardner said. “And you rarely see a very overweight man in a TV ad or in a TV program or movie, unless they are playing the role of a buffoon or a bad guy,” he observed.
Previous body image studies have shown gay men are at higher risk than straight men for developing body dissatisfaction. But those studies were based on small, biased samples that recruited participants from gay-affiliated political and support organizations, Frederick explained.
To overcome potential bias, Frederick and co-author Jamal Essayli, of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, drew data from more than 116,000 men across five national online surveys posted to general news websites.
Not only were gay men more dissatisfied with their appearance, but they were more vulnerable to social pressures regarding their appearance, the study found. For example: