I’ll admit that I’ve struggled with body image issues. I don’t know if I’ve ever verbally said as much before, but nonetheless, it has been the case… and as it turns out, concerns of body image is something more prevalent among men than people used to think.
About four years back I used to weigh a little more than 200 pounds. Being significantly overweight and comparing myself to the ‘ideal’ male body, I used to feel terrible. I didn’t fit the bill. I didn’t have six-pack abs. I wasn’t lean or muscular. I was fat, and that made me inherently unattractive (or so I believed). People used to talk about my weight (especially my family) and I became hypersensitive to the subject. I knew I was overweight, and I didn’t need other people to tell me that… but they still did.
I didn’t want to look the way I did, so I decided to do something about it.
Flash forward two or three years and I got into pretty good shape. I lost more than 50 pounds and I was proud of myself. I felt good. This fact didn’t stop some people from still criticizing my body however; now it just turned to the other side of the spectrum. I was too skinny. I found quickly that the joy I felt when I looked in the mirror from my success was dissipating altogether. After all my hard work, I still wasn’t good enough. I felt that if I didn’t get the six pack abs and the muscular body, I probably wasn’t ever going to be “good enough.”
The gay community has a whole spectrum of men within it but often (like men in general) they are depicted in photos and videos as lean, very attractive men who have the perfectly sculpted body. By extension, this is what we are told a gay man should look like.
Well, I didn’t look like that, and I knew many gay and bisexual men who didn’t look like that. So what did it mean?
It means the image is false.
I’m not saying there aren’t a large number of very fit, very attractive men in the LGBTQIA+ Community, because there are. However there are also a lot of other men in that don’t fit that mold, and that should be okay. There is nothing wrong with aspiring to be your physical best (I’m striving for it), but it has to be put in perspective. Image isn’t everything, and no matter what you look like, you should feel comfortable with who you are.
Women aren’t the only ones inundated with media that gives the perception that the human body should fit a very specific and exclusive mold; it has a harmful effect on men, too.
I’m not going to put all of the statistics in here (because sometimes they are hard to verify) but some studies show that gay men are much more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to develop eating disorders due to body image concerns. (If you would like to read more on that, the National Eating Disorders Association has additional information here). Furthermore, according to the Guardian as a whole, sex men are just as likely as women to have concerns with how they look (more on that here). None of this really should be surprising, however. Boys want to look like and be what they idolize (which would be athletes, Hollywood Actors, TV Stars, and magazine models, etc.)
The point here again is not that we shouldn’t strive for our physical best; there is nothing wrong with that. However, if we are seeking physical perfection with the expectation of finally being happy, or being loved, or if it’s at the expense of harming our bodies, or anything else, then the end result will likely be disappointment or health problems. Happiness doesn’t come after we finally get everything we want. Happiness is a frame of mind we should have in spite of wherever we are and motivate us to go someplace better. Choosing to be happy starts right now, at this moment, regardless of what our personal circumstances would dictate.
No matter what you look like, as a man (or woman for that matter). You are worthy of attention, love, and kindness, and don’t anyone ever treat you different. Your body is awesome, no matter the shape or size it comes in.
