Sports Body Image

The physical appearance of today's masculine men are big, and muscular guys. The fact that most television and movie actors are all thought to be tall intimidating men should prove this. In fact the average Hollywood actor is about five feet ten inches which is taller than the average man, this goes to say something about what height the media thinks guys should be. This leaves many males with body image issues just because they do not fit into the tall body images. Now the media also wants men to be muscular, this is shown in the body image that are given to the public by the media. Almost as a direct result to all these super muscular guys on magazines and in movies is the increased need of young men to workout by lift weights. While lifting weight is a health and positive activity for most young men, however, many young men go workout take supplements and pre-workout additives. The sheer number of men that use these products in order to aid them in their quest for a better more tone body is outlandish. While these product may work to help shape and sculpt muscles however, by adding all of these extra chemicals to your body it could be doing more harm than

Many of these individuals, also face the challenges of these pointless standards. Lorber states, “These differences are socially meaningless until social practices transform them into social facts.” Lorber is talking mostly about the standards set on gender in today’s society. Any gendered person is as equal as another, until society decides that they are not. Humans, especially weightlifters, are always trying to fit in with society's standards. Weightlifting men ”grew up idolizing Arnold [Schwarzenegger, former body champion and Governor of California]” Arnold set the standards to many of these modern day steroid users. These social standards, seem to be a major factor in the steroid use by middle aged men. These steroid users, are abusing their bodies to get a feeling of self accomplishment by society’s

The rhetorical imagery that is used to portray a man's body is spread throughout the fitness industry and health advertisements. These images are on the cover of well-known magazines such as “FITNESSRX”, distribute worldwide targeting men, ages 18-30. These magazines give a visual rhetoric as a method of persuading beauty, body image, and the pursuit of “perfection”. These companies target young adults because they believe they have the money to buy their products to obtain the body they want or the body portrayed on the cover of the magazine.

A lot of people associate steroids with body builders. I made the same assumption that is until I researched this paper. In the 18-34 age group, about 1 percent had ever used steroids, for ages 35 and older, that figure went down to .2 percent. More men than women had used the drugs: 0.9 percent of men and 0.2 percent of women said they had ever taken steroids. NIDA’s Monitoring the Future study has tracked anabolic steroid use among middle school and high school students in the United States since 1989. From 1989 to 1996, there was a slight, gradual decline in the number of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders who had ever used steroids or uses them in the past year. In 1996, 1.8 percent to 2.4 percent of these students had ever use steroids, and 0.9 percent to 1.5 percent had used them in the last year (NIDA September 1997).

According to Laing, “The sexualization of female athletes reduces their self-esteem and identity by dehumanizing and pressuring them into an unhealthy obsession with body image” (page: 3). This leads to the media making women self-conscious about their bodies. Athletes often hear people say of other athletes, “She is too big, she’s not muscular enough or she is too skinny about female athletes.” Because of the way in which the media portrays a particular set of females, all females tend to strive for this “perfect physique”. This can lead to serve cases like dissatisfaction with their appearance and eating disorders. Some may argue that women like the sexualized manner in which they media portrays them because it increases their self-esteem

No matter the sport, most athletes seek every competitive advantage to make it to the top. One of the main advantages is the performance athletes gain through drug use, and a big question today is the real purpose behind the drugs. Is an athlete truly just trying to enhance his or her performance to make it to the next level, or is there a deeper meaning, a problem with body image and how the public views these athletes, or a combination of both? According to an article on the Dilemmas of Doping, the rules in sports have two effects, “One is private: rules produce an entertaining game that generates private benefits for players, owners, and especially spectators. The other is social: rules tend to reward play that exhibits self-discipline, sacrifice for the good of the whole, and fair play.” ( qtd in Bird, Edward J and Gert G. Wagner). An athlete not only is rewarded by fair play, but winning without cheating, using drugs, etc. is the ultimate feeling of accomplishment. These athletes may have a sense that without stimulants they will never reach the top and feel like they have no other choice.

Growing up with the idea that men are all bodybuilders they attempt to obtain these same results. Unfortunately theses results are not obtainable, as stated by Harrison G. Pope Jr, Roberto Olivardia, Amanda Gruber, and John Borowiecki in Evolving Ideals of Male Body Image as seen through Action Toys, “Many modern Figures display the physiques of advanced bodybuilders and some display levels of muscularity far exceeding the outer limits of actual human attainment. Essentially young boys who play with these action figures are influenced to believe that they should look like the action figures as well, but will never be able to obtain the same body image as the action figures; they are setting themselves up for failure due to the misleading images of the action

The essay titled “The Body of the Beholder” by Michele Ingressia from the textbook To the Point is about how black girls and white girls view their bodies. If you were to make a comparison Michele Ingressia says that they view their body images in very different ways. She writes about how black girls don’t mind gaining some weight while white girls do. They are always dieting to have the perfect body but never satisfied with what they have. This essay seems to be a very persuasive because it provides facts and statistics to back up what she has to say.

Typically a girl is under pressure to lose weight and become thinner, while a boy is under pressure to gain the weight and be more buff and muscular. Another study has revealed that the behavior of muscle-enhancing is more often happening between the boys in middle and high school. The need to look that specific way causes adolescent boys to consume a high unhealthy number of powder protein, steroids, and other muscle-enhancing substances. Just like the need to look that way, the consummation of muscle-enhancers have negative effects; such as anger and rage attacks, suicidal tendencies, depression, and heart problems. In a survey, it has been revealed that about 20% of men and over 40% of women would consider having cosmetic surgery in the

Ever see those people on television or the internet and think that you want to be just like them because of how big and muscular they are, well not all of them you want to be like. Body builders or even some professional athletes are not honest about how they really got so big and strong. The case behind this is due the widely known illegal drug known as steroids. Steroids have been used by a enormous group of people throughout the century and have brought along with them huge and devastating problems. The reason for these major problems that comes along with the use of steroids are that users will take advantage and abuse these drugs. Due to such negative effects that steroids bring and the addictions, the

Young people are not good at making decisions for themselves and don’t think of the consequences of the decisions they make. They are easily tempted and it can turn out to be deadly. The youth is now even tempted by performance enhancing drugs, which is one of the most worrying problems facing today's generation. In the article “Drugs in Sports: Temptation and Danger are Everywhere” the author, Mike Szostak, explains “the median age of new steroid users is 15.” This stat is very alarming and is raising questions about why this is happening and why these kids are being tempted. It started at the pro level when a few players started taking them, but then trickled down to young athletes, where many thousands have been tempted by these drugs. It shows how the youth is so easily tempted by performance enhancing drugs. These drugs can be used by adolescents to help become stronger and better at a sport, or they can be used to help kids fit in. Many young people feel self-conscious about their body image and try to find ways to fit in. These kids are very easily tempted by these drugs to try to find a way to fit in. In the article “ Performance-Enhancing Drugs and Teen Athletes” the author states “as many as 1 in 20 teenagers reports using steroids to increase muscle mass.” This shows how many kids are tempted by these drugs and how

The video presented opened my eyes to the effects steroids has on the body and the effect society has on steroids. Before watching this video, I had assumed steroids were a “bad” synthetic drug. Though in reality, it’s a synthetic testosterone and if administered properly it can be used in a healthy manner. Physicians prescribe it for male patients who cannot produce testosterone, or to treat muscle loss, anemia, stunted growth and delayed puberty (CITE). However, most people using steroids do not have an issue producing testosterone, nor any other clinical reason. These people have recognized that steroids are able to enhance their physical performance –strength, speed and enlarged muscles. Unfortunately, those using this substance are putting

Therefore, the commendation of such look and shape commercializes unhealthy body image and procreates eating disorders. Unfortunately, at present the commercialism of a perfect body is encountered by almost everyone on everyday basis. The public is bombarded daily with images of glamorously thin women in commercials, on billboards, in movies in magazines and etc?According to Melanie Katzman, a consultant psychologist from New York, the media has actively defined the thin ideal as success and treats the body as a commodity. (Rhona MacDonald, 2001) It is evident that the persistent advocating of the media and the society produced a constant pursuit of thinness, which became a new religion. A study conducted by Harvard researchers has revealed the effect of media and magazines on adolescent girls in high schools. The children were exposed to fashion magazines and television commercials, and a while after were given self-rating surveys. The study found that sixty-nine percent of the girls said that magazine pictures

Today 's society is constantly presented with misrepresentations of the ideal body image through the advertising of diet plans and supplements. Companies in the fitness industry scam people into buying useless products or services by advertising with individuals that have, what the mass media sees as, the 'perfect ' body composition. In addition to getting consumers to buy into a product or service, these companies also aid society with the spreading of this fake idea of what classifies as the perfect body. They portray a body image that is unattainable for most individuals in society, despite how many of those supplements being advertised they buy. The models used in these advertisements, are in most cases, starving themselves, enhanced via illegal substances, or are photo-shopped to the point where even they do not look like the model displayed in the ad. All this has led to many people wanting to strive for that perfect body, that in reality, is impossible to achieve. In order to show the affect these advertisements play in our society, I will be deconstructing multiple ads in the fitness industry, as well as multiple peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles centered around the impact media has on an individual 's self-image.

Although, athletes are the role models the boys grow up playing sports but when they do not perform in an excellent or right way they are chided as girls in a away to help them perform better. The language that is in the media attributes and reinforces the dominant discourse that males are stronger than females. (Public research group, 2010). In addition, men are expected to have healthy strong bodies and simultaneously on the other hand isolate and seclude themselves from females as to not care how they look. Men that are obese are subjected through oppression as a result of the factor that they do not fit in the masculine stereotype of a muscle built body. Furthermore, young boys are taught this early and consequently reproduce this discourse to discriminate others in school that do not fit in to Western culture's ideology of masculinity. This discrimination of the obese instills a fear on the youth that to be fat is not ideal and is therefore seen in revulsion and hatred. Nevertheless, the discourse implies that genetics do not play a role and that every male can get this perfect body of masculinity in a sense. Therefore, a man would need to endure the journey for how ever long it takes to achieve this. In contrary, this is not the truth a man may go the gym everyday for a number of years and never achieve this form of masculinity because for their body type and genetics is impossible. Moreover, the stereotypes against overweight men at a first glance