THE RISE IN MALE IMAGES IN THE MEDIA AND THE ADONIS COMPLEX

Being male in America used to be easy. There was hardly a worry about weight, looks, or health. But over the last 20 to 30 year

The most common forms of eating disorders in males are anorexia, or self-starvation; bulimia, characterized by overeating and then purging (either by vomiting, use of laxatives, diuretics or diet pills, or fanatical exercising); and compulsive overeating. National statistics show that over 1 million men suffer from anorexia, bulimia, and compulsive overeating, and according to Ira Sacker, a doctor at an eating disorders clinic in Brooklyn, over half of all bulimia sufferers are male.

Oftentimes, however, the man might actually be getting thinner in his attempt to bulk up. Concern over a proper diet and not eating too much to become pudgy, combined with overexercising actually reduces muscle growth and weight. According to Ellen Pederson, a psychologist who runs a men's eating disorder program, "Men want to bulk up. But the image gets distorted. One man told me, 'I wanted to look like Michelangelo and I ended up looking like Picasso.'"

s there has been cultural revolution happening that has made men flock to gyms, buy into diet fads, hire personal trainers, and spend more than double what women spend on exercise clothing, equipment, membership, and instruction. All are trying to attain the perfect body, as seen in so many media outlets, and are making it an obsession. Looking at a study done by Psychology Today on men's dissatisfaction with their body, this obsession proves evident. Of the men surveyed in 1997, 43 percent felt unhappy with their present appearance, compared to only 15 percent in 1972. This rise, according to three researchers from Harvard and Brown, is due to what they have labeled as the Adonis Complex. They assert that "men have lost their faith in the idea that masculinity might be innate, or God-given, so they're trying to build it out of muscle." This has led men to believe that the only route to perfection is through appearance, and that this perfection will somehow be reflected to the inside. But this golden brick road which men are now striving to take isn't easy to follow, and the goal is not easy to reach.

Premise one of Symbolic Interactionism involves constructing a social reality through meaning. Blumer asserts that "humans act toward people or things on the basis of the meanings they assign to those people or things." The media has taken on the role of assigning meanings to what men should look like. Whereas two decades ago there was no definite concept of what a muscular man or a thin man looked like, now the media has come to assign these meanings through images in magazines, television, music videos, and fashion. This media creation has helped all men to come to a "collective hunch" of what they should look like.

Premise three deals with the individual's interpretation of symbols and how their own thought processes modify how they view the symbols. Blumer describes this process as "inner dialogue minding" and is defined by the reflection and reactions of humans to symbols. When men view an image on television or in a magazine they reflect and react to it. According to Steve Bloomfield, spokesperson for the Eating Disorders Association, if an individual is susceptible, the images may be a strong contributory factor to male eating disorders.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Symbolic Interactionism, Disorders Association, PLASTIC SURGERY, Adonis Complex, Calvin Klein, Lynn Ponton, ADONIS COMPLEX, America There's, GI Joe, GQ Details, eating disorders, symbolic interactionism, adonis complex, body perfection, images media, 15 percent, disorders association, eating disorder, eating disorders association, plastic surgery, developing eating disorders, inch biceps, social reality meaning, male body image, eating disorders males,
Approximate Word count = 2559
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)