Build Muscle Because Magazines Say So?

In the 2005 article “Burn Fat, Build Muscle: A Content Analysis of Men’s Health and Men’s Fitness” published in the International Journal of Men’s Health (Volume 4, Number 2 / Summer 2005), researchers find that images in men’s magazine may also play a role in influencing behaviors of men regarding their bodies. Do men want to build muscles because they see pictures of muscular men?

It is well known that women’s magazines portray models who are on the extreme end in terms of weight and height proportions. These beauty models may have impact on women, who regard these models as the “target” for them to achieve in regards to their bodies.

In this study, researchers looked at articles published from 1999 to

2003 in the magazines Men’s Health and Men’s Fitness. The males pictured in these magazines were much more muscular and leaner than the preceived notion of an average male. Contents in these magazines also tend to reinforce this image of a much more lean and muscular male.

The researchers concluded that these images and content can influence behaviors in men in which they will try to build muscle and lose weight to achieve the abnormally lean and muscular imagese of men portrayed in these magazines.

In other words, are men running out to build muscles and burning off fat to look leaner, at least subsconsciously because they see and read the content in these types of magazines?

Article referenced: http://mensstudies.metapress.com/content/1404768418830847/