Boys Need Help with Body Image, Too
Posted January 14th, 2013 by Leslie KantorI vividly remember once overhearing my then-six-year-old son’s friend asking how he could get six-pack abs. I was shocked that these young boys were so concerned with their appearance and so aware of what the media was pushing as the ideal male body. Of even more concern, a strong desire to look good leads boys to act on their ideas about how bodies should appear.
A recent study in Pediatrics found that more than 40 percent of boys in middle school and high school regularly exercise to increase muscle mass. Thirty-five percent said they used protein supplements, and six percent had experimented with steroids. This is definitely cause for concern: protein supplements, steroids, and excessive exercise are unhealthy and can have dangerous effects on growing bodies.
The study found that boys who are overweight or obese are more likely to use protein powders and steroids than boys of average body mass index (BMI). Today, about 25 percent of individuals suffering from eating disorders are males. People with a long-lasting negative body image are more likely to have problems such as anorexia, bulimia, over-exercising, or overeating.
Our society is very preoccupied with physical appearance, and while we’ve long known that girls are targeted by advertising and media at very young ages, increasingly boys are, too. The study found that boys’ dissatisfaction with their bodies has increased over time. If we take a look at male role models — athletes, superheroes, actors — you’d be hard pressed to find any who aren’t muscular and attractive. A quick trip to Toys “R” Us will show you aisles filled with action figures that are more muscular than ever before. Our sons notice it, and feel pressured at much younger ages to live up to this image.
As parents, we should be careful not to focus on weight or food, or criticize our kids’ appearance. Certainly, it’s great to keep healthy, nutritious foods at home and encourage your kids to participate in sports and other activities that interest them. Overweight and obesity are real challenges to young people’s health. But we do want to be careful to make sure that our kids do not develop negative body image. We can’t stop the images our kids are exposed to, but we can arm them to view media critically — ask them what messages they think movies, TV shows, commercials, or ads are trying to convey and why, and how it influences us. Try to watch TV with your kids so you can talk about what’s going on and what’s realistic.
You can also nurture a positive body image by emphasizing that how they look does not determine their self-worth. Planned Parenthood offers more information about body image on its website.
It’s vitally important to help kids develop a positive body image. Let’s teach them that it’s more important that they’re healthy than thin or muscular.
1 Comment
March 27, 2013 at 1:33 am by AlexAs a student living on my own in college, it is my responsibility to decide what I want to eat and what is good for my body and makes me feel the best. As a future parent also, I believe that it is important to let children know early on what it means to be healthy and that every body is different. According to an article written by Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramore titled “Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift”, “promoting one body size as more favorable than another also has ethical consequences, contributing to shaming and discrimination”(Bacon, Aphramore 2011).
In reality, it doesn’t just start with this knowledge that influential people like the First Lady is telling her children, and assuming that its automatically going to be affective. It starts with every household understanding information like this and how important it is for children’s health as well as their mental wellbeing. Instead of being weighed in Physical Education in schools as young as 7th grade, what needs to be taught is the Health At Every Size concept: “HAES research shows that by learning to value their bodies as they are right now, even when this differs from a desired weight or shape or generates ambivalent feelings, people strengthen their ability to take care of themselves and sustain improvements in health behaviors”(Bacon, Aphramore 2011).
It doesn’t begin with what is on the table for dinner, and I believe that it is the adults that put children through these stressful times in Physical Education that are causing all of the psychological and at the end of the day, killing children and ruining them for the rest of their lives. This is all because they’re bodies are changing in 7th and 8th grade, but aren’t being told that it is OK that it is happening, but that they are just plain gaining weight, and that’s all that the numbers mean. I am a 5’8” athlete and am labeled as obese. I thank “professionals” everyday for putting this label on me because I know myself, and I know that I strive everyday to eat well and be an athlete and the fact that I know I am alright the way I am and are not obese makes me accept myself even more.
I have never been a numbers person and I think that numbers, in this case, are the most useless things in the world. Photos of “fat” people on billboards and labels wont help to bring any awareness like the Health At Every Size Concept will. Everybody is different inside and out and it is important that young people understand that it is not what you look like, but your how your lifestyle is and how you can be the healthiest that you can be. Everyone deserves to be accepting of themselves. After all, this life is hard enough isn’t it?
Bibliography
Aphramore, L. B. (2011, January 24). Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift. Retrieved March 22, 2013, from Nutrition Journal: http://www.nutritionj.com/content/10/1/9
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