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Admittedly: It’s a bit of a strange topic for an article on a website mainly focused on losing weight and building muscle. A wrong ideal: “Men overestimate the level of muscularity that women find attractive and women overestimate the level of slimness that men find attractive.” However, this is the outcome of a (dated) study from America from 2004 by the University of California (1).
Societal Pressure
Americans refer to studies showing that people compare their own physical attractiveness with ideals set by society for their gender (2).
“What Men Desire for Themselves”
According to the researchers, men are exposed to media images that depict the current (American) ideal for men (1,3,4,5). After seeing these images, appreciation for one’s own body appearance decreases (2). The more health and fitness magazines are read, the less satisfied one is with their own body and the more they contemplate using anabolic steroids (6,7).
Initially, I felt compelled to note that this is of course relative to the potential difference between the presented image and one’s own body. More importantly, whether this difference is perceived positively or negatively. Personally, I’m not particularly envious of most men who appear on the cover of, for example, Men’s Health. In fact, I would be depressed if I woke up one morning and all my muscle mass had disappeared. However, looking at magazines like Flex, I sometimes think, “That’s how I want to look!”. For me, this doesn’t mean I’m unhappy with my own body or reaching for steroids because I’ve accepted for myself that this is not achievable for me naturally, and very likely not even with steroids. After all, it’s often the top bodybuilders depicted in these magazines who are genetically superior to the average man. However, I know enough guys for whom it is true that they turn to steroids as soon as they see more muscular guys in the gym, and I find it plausible that the same applies to examples they see in such magazines. For someone like Phil Heath, who is himself the great example for many bodybuilders, it would be difficult to find examples of even bigger bodybuilders that would make him feel insecure.
The researchers themselves recognize this, however, and therefore specifically looked at the audience of bodybuilding magazines. They also expected this audience not to find the image of “normal” men’s magazines muscular enough and considered the opinion of this audience important for the correct scaling of the level of muscularity (1).
In general, it appears that for most men, their own ideal body image is almost always more muscular than they actually are (8,9,10,11,12).
In other words: This is relative to the physique of the person in question, their ideal image, and the difference between them. If you’re not satisfied, you either have to get off your lazy butt and do something about it or adjust your goals. Nothing new under the sun in my opinion.
What I find more interesting about the research by the Yanks is that men often think they need a certain degree of muscularity to be attractive to women, while the image they have in mind is too muscular for those same women. For example, Gregg Valentino, the synthol junkie who injected his arms with the oil-like substance to appear muscular*, experienced this when he walked into a nightclub. He received hardly any attention from the women except for: “What a freak!” while their boyfriends thought: “Wow!”.
*However, he did train, which cannot be compared to the synthol suckers who only inject synthol and, for example, have mega arms on a smurf body.
“What Women Desire in Men”
Now, it’s not that women don’t appreciate muscles at all. According to the studies mentioned by the Americans, women do like “above-average” muscular men, and men are aware of this (9,11,12). However, men tend to overestimate the level of muscularity implied by “above-average.”
“What Women Desire for Themselves”
The researchers then looked at the ideal image that women have for themselves. They did not collect their own data for this. They did not examine how slim women are depicted in magazines for women versus those for men and whether there is a difference. They only refer to other studies that are less consistent. Some studies show the same pattern as with men. According to these studies, women overestimate the degree of slimness that men find attractive (13,14,15). However, other research shows that women are quite accurate in this regard (16). So, 1-0 for the women.
I also see this difference in the culture of fitness and bodybuilding competitions. In women’s divisions, there may be classes that some men would say are too muscular, but too slim, few would say. You hardly see anorexic types on this stage because they are not appreciated by judges.
However, most ladies would say they don’t find the “reverse anorexia cases,” the mass monsters of men who weigh dry 120+ kilos and never find themselves big enough, attractive.
“The Ideal Man According to Men’s Magazines”
The researchers compared the “ideal” level of muscularity for men as depicted in men’s magazines with that depicted in women’s magazines. They looked at magazines like Cosmopolitan, Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness. These were chosen mainly based on market share and thus the number of people they reach with their covers. They looked at the images on the covers of these magazines and had students score the level of muscularity (without knowing the purpose of the study) using the scale below.
Firstly, I don’t understand why they compared three men’s magazines to one women’s magazine. The researchers don’t provide an explanation for this. Moreover, they acknowledge themselves that Muscle & Fitness is a magazine targeted at bodybuilders. This implies that the level of muscularity depicted in it should be higher than in the other magazines. And indeed, the level of muscularity in Muscle & Fitness was found to be higher. Men’s Fitness was in between. Yet they continue to draw conclusions based on this.
Secondly, they don’t mention the average level of muscularity per magazine. Because of this, it remains unclear how the four magazines actually differ. That Cosmopolitan scored lower on this than Muscle & Fitness is nice to know, but it doesn’t say much about the average level of muscularity per magazine. This is all the more important because the scores of the students were based on their opinion. Without a reference, this opinion is worth nothing.
Thirdly, there is the difference in target groups. Muscle & Fitness is aimed at a specific target group of people who enjoy looking at muscular men. That women’s magazines might also like this image doesn’t mean that this image is representative of the ideal image for men for the general public. This is not made clear anywhere in the article.
Moreover, the cover is the shop window of the magazine. The cover must attract the target audience. Just as on a package of cookies, the image of the cookies is intended to make you want to eat them. This does not mean that the average cookie looks like that, but it must look appetizing. So, the covers of magazines must be tempting, not be a reflection of reality. This is another reason why you cannot draw conclusions based on the covers.
Finally, the researchers write that there are hardly any images of men on the covers of women’s magazines, let alone scantily clad. So, it cannot be concluded that women like men who look like the men depicted on the covers of men’s magazines. This statement is false.
Conclusion
The researchers conclude that men in general find the level of muscularity depicted on men’s magazine covers too muscular and that women in general do not find this level of muscularity attractive (1). However, they draw this conclusion based on a rather weak study. They make unwarranted comparisons and draw conclusions about the general population without having studied them.
This is just one example of the many misunderstandings in fitness. It also confirms that in the culture of fitness and bodybuilding, the standards for men are distorted. A body that you see in a bodybuilding magazine is not necessarily the ideal body for everyone. Only a small minority of the population finds a body like that attractive. For most people, such a body is just too muscular. However, this doesn’t mean that the guy who spends his life in the gym working on such a body is a loser who can’t get a woman. He just needs to find a woman who appreciates that kind of body. Just as a woman with a BMI of 20 should not want to have sex with someone who has a BMI of 30.
In other words: If you’re not satisfied with your body, do something about it. But do it for yourself, not for others. And if you find yourself attracted to someone, accept their body as it is or find someone else. Criticizing someone’s body is not only hurtful but also unnecessary.
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