body image

We as members of a bodybuilding discussionboard are mostly health conscious we pay attention to our body, we train, maintain  and nourish our body. And we mostly have a bigger acceptance of muscle on the human body, both male and female, then the average population. Still the last few decades the average public accepts the muscular people more than in the days of Arnold. Bodybuilding and especially Fitness went from an obscure subculture to broadly accepted , as I wrote in previous posts on body-image cq muscle dismorphia, movies, moeviestars, music-stars esp. the HipHop  accepted bodybuilding an juicing as part of their life-style.

On almost every website devoted on physical training you can find a section on female physical beauty and lots of male members like to watch and comment T&A (tits and ass). Controversial are the pictures of female bodybuilders. For those females the question how much is too much is even more relevant than for a male bodybuilder. Also because their genitals get bigger and become more pronounced through the use of androgens. Some men like it most of them don’t.

But what do women and girls think of us? How much muscle do they like? As I wrote previously, we have a bigger muscle acceptance and are “used” to muscular people in the gym. Most of us like to work-out and grow bigger not only the get respect from our friends and others but also because we want our body to be attractive to the girls. From experience I know that a bodybuilding physique leads to ooh’s and eewk’s.

From body image to body dysmorphia

 

The way we look to ourselves and the outside world is for an important part driven by media.

If we go back in time, we mostly call certain looks to a decade. The fifties brought the “Rock and roll” and Elvis retro-style hair. When I think “sixties” I see long hair, hippies, free love, a lot of flowers and a distinct music. Its was followed by “ Punk “. People follow a certain code in fashion, hairstyle, music etc.

As long as it comes to fashion or hairstyles, most people can adapt to these unwritten rules, mostly the younger people are very eager to be accepted, you’re “in” or “out”, in the sixties you where either “hip” or not, now the magic word is “cool”. What if this typation involves our body-image?

In the mid-sixties the most admired look changed from Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe to a British fashion model called “Twiggy”. The most wanted body type changed from a fully curved voluptuous  blond model to a boyish thin girl.

Whether you're thin, fat, small, dark, blond, redhead, you wanna be something else," said the world's first boldface supermodel. "I wanted a fairy godmother to make me look like Marilyn Monroe. I had no boobs, no hips, and I wanted it desperately."

Since then the fashion markets unnatural cq unhealthy thin models. To achieve this look , mostly very young, girls develop an unnatural  eating behaviour from diet pills to bulimia and anorexia. The first signs of body dysmorphia embodied in eating disorders.