Body image is not just a woman's issue. According to a new nationwide study, men also deal with the pressures of having to look attractive.
For this study, David Frederick, an assistant professor of psychology at Chapman University, and Jamal Essayli analyzed data on 116,356 men that were taken from five other national studies to see how men viewed their own bodies. The average ages across the studies ranged from 35 to 50.
The participants, who were divided into weight groups, were asked about their satisfaction levels with their appearance as well as any feelings of pressure or judgment from others that they believed were related to weight.
The team found that overall, about 20 to 40 percent of the men stated that they were not satisfied with their image, which included physical appearance, weight, muscle tone and size. Most of the men also reported feeling judged by others based on their appearance.
When the researchers examined weight categories, they found that men who had normal weight were generally satisfied with their physical appearance and men who were classified as obese were not happy with their appearance. Men in the overweight group, however, stated that they were satisfied with their body, a finding that the researchers had not expected.
"Men can feel pressure to appear strong and powerful, so having some additional mass does not necessarily lead to body dissatisfaction," Frederick, whose findings were published in the journal Psychology in Men & Masculinity, said. "The fact that most 'overweight' men felt satisfied might seem surprising, but the medical category for overweight does not correlate well to what people consider to be overweight socially."
The researchers also looked at sexual orientation and examined its effect on how men rated their physical appearance. They found that gay men were more likely than heterosexual men to feel self-conscious about their bodies. Gay men reported higher levels of media pressure to look attractive and a greater desire for cosmetic surgery. They also admitted to avoiding sex due to how they felt about their bodies and feeling uncomfortable wearing a swimsuit in public.
This study's findings reiterate the importance of acknowledging that men deal with body image issues like women do.
