Elsevier

Body Image

Volume 10, Issue 2, March 2013, Pages 251-254
Body Image

Brief research report
Examination of muscularity and body fat depictions in magazines that target heterosexual and gay men

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2012.12.003Get rights and content

Abstract

Previous content analyses of magazine images have typically examined within genres but failed to include comparisons between publications intended for various populations. The purpose of this study was to examine depictions of muscularity and thinness of male images in several widely distributed magazines that target male audiences from a variety of genres. Twenty-three magazine titles with the highest circulation rates that targeted heterosexual men, gay men, and general audiences were selected for image analyses. We found that magazines that target gay male audiences depicted images of men who were thinner in comparison to magazines targeting heterosexual men. Both gay and heterosexual magazines depicted male images with greater muscularity than magazines intended for general audiences. Differences in male image depictions in magazines may contribute to the promotion of an unattainable body ideal in some subgroups of gay culture.

Highlights

► Examined muscularity and body fat in heterosexual, gay and general male magazines. ► Gay magazines depicted leaner images than heterosexual and general magazines. ► Gay and heterosexual magazines have more muscular images than general magazines.

Introduction

Body image research has focused primarily on women and the deleterious effects that contribute to the development of eating disordered behavior and eating pathology (Cash, 2002, Striegel-Moore and Bulik, 2007). However, men may develop body image dissatisfaction as a result of their subjective evaluation of not conforming to cultural ideals of masculinity that emphasize muscularity and leanness (Pope, Phillips, & Olivardia, 2000). Within the gay community, varying degrees of importance are placed on lean and muscular ideals (Levesque & Vichesky, 2006). The range of leanness and muscularity is often dependent upon the subgroup being identified. For example, men who identify as “bears” display a body ideal that is larger in mass, with an emphasis placed on increased muscularity, while men who identify as “twinks” embrace a thinner and leaner body ideal (Duncan, 2010, Gough and Flanders, 2009). The importance of conforming to the body type in the subculture to which an individual identifies has been theorized to contribute to a greater number of gay men reporting greater dissatisfaction with their overall body image than heterosexual men (Kaminski et al., 2005, Levesque and Vichesky, 2006, Morrison et al., 2004). However, the heterogeneity of these idealized physiques has led to recent critiques of the extent to which body ideals and expectations may influence an individual's subjective dissatisfaction (Kane, 2010). Despite various body ideals within the gay community, each of these idealized types places an increased focus on the male physique and on attaining some degree of muscularity and leanness.

Regularly reading magazines is an influential source of sociocultural information that may lead to internalizing body ideals (Pope, Olivardia, Borowiecki, & Cohane, 2001). Although U.S. consumer magazine sales have declined in recent years, the circulation rates of American gay publications have increased by 5.3% (Prime Access & Rivendell, 2012). Furthermore, between 1996 and 2011 U.S. advertising revenues in gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered press have grown six times faster than that of consumer magazines (Prime Access & Rivendell, 2012).

Previous content analyses have described how the male physique has been depicted in magazines. For example, Petrie, Austin, Cowley, and Helmcamp (1996), found that the fit and muscular physique portrayed in men's fashion magazines (e.g., Esquire, GQ) remained relatively consistent between 1960 and 1992. Conversely, Law and Labre (2002) reported that a shift toward models depicting leaner and more muscular physiques occurred in the 1990s. Moreover, the articles and advertisements contained in popular gay magazines were noted as placing extreme importance on having a body that is lean and muscular (Saucier & Caron, 2008). Taken on aggregate, these studies suggest that gay men are increasingly being targeted with images that demonstrate an unrealistic ideal of beauty, body size, muscularity, and body composition. Thus, gay men may be prone to body image dissatisfaction in part because of these sociocultural cues that emphasize the importance of unattainable body ideals (Levesque and Vichesky, 2006, Tiggemann et al., 2007).

Existing content analyses are limited by selecting small numbers of magazines (e.g., Petrie et al., 1996) and failing to include comparison publications intended for other populations (e.g., Saucier & Caron, 2008). Thus, the purpose of our study was to examine the visual sociocultural cues regarding men's body images depicted in highly circulated magazines. We hypothesized firstly that images in gay magazines would depict a more muscular body ideal than similar content in magazines targeting heterosexual men and general audiences (Law and Labre, 2002, Saucier and Caron, 2008). Second, we hypothesized that images in gay magazines would represent a leaner body ideal with an emphasis on lower body fat than the images presented in other magazine genres (Saucier and Caron, 2008, Tiggemann et al., 2007).

Section snippets

Method

Twenty-three magazine titles with the highest rank in each genre (i.e., male, gay, general) were selected based on their average U.S. circulation subscriptions paid and verified (including single copy sales) as ranked by the Audit Bureau of Circulations’ (ABC) six month review ending December 31, 2006 and listed on each magazine's official website (accessed January 2007) (see Table 1). Furthermore, we consulted each magazine's website for demographic data to determine the approximate gender

Results

Preliminary analyses were conducted to examine relationships between muscularity, thinness and magazine genres. See Table 2 for descriptives. We found no significant difference in the number of images in each genre of magazines, F(2, 20) = 1.55, p = .238, η2 = .13. Our first hypothesis regarding muscularity of men in magazine images was tested using a univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA). We found significant differences in muscularity of male images (dependent variable) in each magazine genre

Discussion

Our results suggest that there were both similarities and differences when comparing the images of men in gay, heterosexual, and general audience magazines. Our hypotheses concerning the muscularity and body fat depictions of magazine images were partially supported. That is, male images in magazines intended for gay as well as heterosexual audiences portrayed more muscular ideals than images in general audience magazines. However, no difference was found between gay and heterosexual audience

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