Teen boys also risking their health in pursuit of unattainable bodies

Great, so that basically makes all of us, right? The New York Times reports:

“There has been a striking change in attitudes toward male body image in the last 30 years,” said Dr. Harrison Pope, a psychiatry professor at Harvard who studies bodybuilding culture and was not involved in the study. The portrayal of men as fat-free and chiseled “is dramatically more prevalent in society than it was a generation ago,” he said.

While college-age men have long been interested in bodybuilding, pediatricians say they have been surprised to find that now even middle school boys are so absorbed with building muscles. And their youth adds an element of risk.

Just as girls who count every calorie in an effort to be thin may do themselves more harm than good, boys who chase an illusory image of manhood may end up stunting their development, doctors say, particularly when they turn to supplements — or, worse, steroids — to supercharge their results.

Um, “may do themselves more harm than good” seems like a bit of an understatement. A new survey of middle and high school boys found that almost all of them exercised at least occasionally to add muscle and 40 percent regularly did so. Thirty-eight percent said they used protein supplements, and nearly 6 percent said they had experimented with steroids.

And it’s not just boys. As one of the researchers noted, female beauty standards have evolved too. “It’s not just being thin. It’s being thin and toned.” In fact, most of the girls surveyed were also concerned about adding muscle, 21 percent used protein supplements, and nearly 5 percent used steroids. “Strong is the new skinny,” “fitspo” is the new “thinspo,” and everything is the worst.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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