Elsevier

Body Image

Volume 2, Issue 1, March 2005, Pages 81-86
Body Image

Brief research report
Do representations of male muscularity differ in men's and women's magazines?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2004.12.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Men overestimate the degree of muscularity that is attractive to women, and women overestimate the degree of thinness that is most attractive to men. Consistent with the thesis that sociocultural input influences such body type preferences and beliefs, we postulated that magazines aimed at a male audience would portray a more muscular male body ideal than would magazines aimed at a female audience. Systematic comparison of popular magazines (Cosmopolitan, Men's Health, Men's Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness) revealed that the ideal male body marketed to men is more muscular than the ideal male body marketed to women. We introduce the Physical Trait Overvaluation Hypothesis, which proposes that gender-specific media fuel emphasis on certain body parts in within-gender prestige competitions. The resulting competitive escalation creates a disconnect between the preferences of one gender and the personal aspirations of the other.

Introduction

People assess themselves on a variety of criteria, including their physical attractiveness, by comparing themselves to gender-specific ideals communicated to them by the larger society (e.g., Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, & Tantleff-Dunn, 1999). Men are exposed to media images of muscular men that exemplify the contemporary American vision of the ideal male body (e.g., Leit et al., 2002; Leit, Pope, & Gray, 2001; Pope, Olivardia, Borowiecki, & Cohane, 2001; Pope, Olivardia, Gruber, & Borowiecki, 1999). After viewing images of the idealized male physique, men's body image satisfaction decreases (e.g., Thompson & Heinberg, 1999), and time spent reading health and fitness magazines is correlated with higher levels of body image dissatisfaction and more frequent contemplation of the use of steroids (e.g., Botta, 2003; Morry & Staska, 2001).

Media representations of the ideal male body as muscular may influence the body shapes men desire and strive to achieve. Studies have assessed men's body type preferences by presenting participants with an array of male bodies that vary in percentage of muscularity and asking men to indicate their current and ideal body. In these studies, men chose as ideal a body that was more muscular than their current body (Buchanan, Frederick, & Friedman, 2005; Frederick & Haselton, 2003; Lynch & Zellner, 1999; Olivardia, Pope, Borowiecki, & Cohane, 2004; Pope et al., 2000).

Women in the contemporary West find male bodies that are more muscular than average most attractive, and men recognize that women prefer these body builds (Frederick & Haselton, 2003; Olivardia et al., 2004; Pope et al., 2000). One study examining advertisements in leading US women's magazines (Cosmopolitan and Glamour) observed that images of undressed men increased from 3% in the 1950s to 35% in the 1990s, suggesting that male physiques are becoming more important to women over time (Pope et al., 2001).

Past research has asked women to indicate the level of female thinness desired by men, and then separately measured men's preferences for female thinness. Some results indicate that women overestimate the level of female thinness desired by men (e.g., Cohn & Adler, 1992; Fallon & Rozin, 1985; Jacobi & Cash, 1994), although other research suggests that women are accurate in their estimations (Tovée & Cornelissen, 2001). Research employing similar measures designed for men has shown that men desire a level of muscularity that is greater than the level found attractive by women (Frederick & Haselton, 2003; Olivardia et al., 2004), and that men overestimate the level of muscularity women find ideal (Olivardia et al., 2004) and the level women desire in a short-term sexual partner (Frederick & Haselton, 2003).

We examined whether the contrast between men's perceptions of women's preferences and women's actual preferences is reflected in differences in the images presented by gender-specific media. To explore whether the ideal level of male muscularity presented in media aimed at men differs from that which is presented in media aimed at women, we compared images of men taken from the covers or centerfolds of magazines marketed to each gender.

We compared male bodies presented in three types of magazines: Female-Audience (Cosmopolitan), Male-Audience (Men's Health and Men's Fitness), and Body-Builder Audience (Muscle & Fitness). Given that men overestimate the level of muscularity women desire, we predicted that men represented in the Female-Audience magazine would be less muscular than those in the Male-Audience magazines. The Body-Builder Audience magazine was included to establish that the Male-Audience magazines portray an ideal that is less muscular than those marketed towards individuals interested in muscularity per se, and to demonstrate that the rating instrument used in this study can discriminate between the levels of muscularity ranging from non-muscular to extremely muscular.

Publications were selected because they have a wide circulation and/or are marketed to our target audiences of interest. Cosmopolitan magazine has a readership of 16 million women, and 89% of them are between the ages of 18 and 49 (Media Mark Research, 1999). The majority of Men's Health's readers are men (85%), and the majority (71%) are between the ages of 18 and 44 (cf. Alexander, 2003). In 2003, Cosmopolitan ranked 14th in revenue among all U.S. magazines, Men's Health ranked 42nd, and Muscle and Fitness and Men's Fitness did not rank in the top 100 (Magazine Publishers of America, 2004). It is our impression based on the advertisements in these magazines that Men's Fitness is marketed to a population similar to that of Men's Health, whereas Muscle & Fitness is marketed to body-builders.

Section snippets

Magazines

We located 100% of the issues of Cosmopolitan magazine published between June 2002 and September 2004 (28 issues), 100% of the issues of Men's Health from January 2001 to August 2004 (36 issues), 93% of the issues of Men's Fitness from January 2002 to August 2004 (27 of 29 issues), and 81% of the issues of Muscle & Fitness from January 2002 to August 2004 (22 of 27 issues). We made color photocopies of the front covers of Men's Health, Men's Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness, and the monthly “Hunk

Results

Four of the Muscle & Fitness covers featured only women on the cover, and two of the Men's Health covers presented only a man's face; these issues were treated as missing data. The coders showed high inter-rater reliability (Cronbach's alpha = .96) and a pattern of high inter-correlations between coders (ranging from r = .80 to .90), suggesting that the coders were highly similar in their proportional ordering of images.

A three-way ANOVA was conducted to determine if the magazines differed from

Summary of findings

These results indicate that, as predicted, Female-Audience magazines present representations of the ideal male body that are less muscular than Male-Audience magazines. Male-Audience magazines were also less muscular than magazines specifically targeted at body-builders.

Limitations

The images displayed in the Male-Audience magazines may not be typical of all Male-Audience magazines. Our initial intention was to also code shirtless male images in other Male-Audience magazines (e.g., Details, GQ, Maxim,

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by generous support awarded to David Frederick by the Center for Culture, Brain, and Development and by the Edward A. Dickson Fellowship awarded by the Communication Studies Program at UCLA.

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