I'm sharing a recent presentation on the impact of idealised forms of the male body on young men's body confidence, mental health and exercise to mark both #SHAD2018 and #EDAW2018

1. Slimming down and
bulking up
Dr Marc Bush
Chief Policy Advisor, YoungMinds
@marc_bush / @youngmindsUK

2. • Transition into, and out of, secondary school marks significant
changes in boys and young men’s perceptions about their bodies.
• Many boys and young men in the UK describe the ‘perfect’ male
body as being as either muscular, athletic or thin.
• Worryingly, 2 in 5 boys in secondary school think idealised images
of men’s bodies are realistic.
• Two thirds of these boys believe that the ‘perfect body’ is
attainable if they work to achieve it.
• 90% of teenaged boys exercised with the goal of slimming down
or bulking up (not for health-related reasons).
@CredosThinks, 2016 / Eisenberg et al, 2011
Boys and young men’s perceptions

3. When presenting their bodies on social media, most boys and
young men report that they have:
• Used a filter, lens or colouring / brightness / contrast control to
augment an image of their face and/or body.
• Used a brush or correction tool to cover up spots or moles.
• Tensed their muscles, stomaches or taken a picture from above
to make their body to look thinner, more muscular or athletic.
• Removed or shaved body hair.
• Copied a sexualised image they had seen from a peer, on social
media, TV, film, advertising or on a website.
• Deleted social media images of their face or body because of
body-shaming, online trolling or bullying.
Impact on social media presentations

4. Impact on behaviour and wellbeing
Pressure to attain and idealised body creates additional psychological stress,
shame and emotional distress in boys and young men. They respond to these
pressures in a range of ways including:
• Substance misuse and over-injection of supplements: use of steroids,
creatine, protein and caffeine supplements.
There has been a significant increase in the numbers of boys and young men
injecting anabolic steroid, with cases including boys of 13 years (Crime Survey
for England and Wales / PHE, 2015).
• Disordered eating: over, under, and restricted eating patterns (anorexia,
bulimia, and orthorexia).
• Excessive exercise and self-injury: exercising with an acquired injury or using
exercise as a form of control, self-punishment or anxiety mitigation.
• Increased risk-taking and challenging behaviours: challenging authority or
seeking out aggressive and/or risky sexualised behaviours.
• Suicidal, self-harming and self-injurious behaviours: inflicting harm on
themselves in order to makes sense of their experiences, to manage emotional
distress, experience pain, asserting control over their body, or defacing a
rejected body part.

5. Impact on young men’s mental health
Low body-confidence has a profound effect on boys and young people’s mental health, including:
• Experiencing high levels of shame: about their body and identity, which can effect their relationships
with others and increase the risk of being bullied. Young people may also avoid situations where their
body would be more visual to others (such as going swimming or to the gym) or may become self-
effacing when this is unavoidable.
• Experiencing low self-esteem: which can lead to self-defeating behaviours, self-harming and
increased risk-taking behaviours.
• Intensively seeking, or avoiding, pleasurable activities: including experiences of hyperhedonia
(excessive goal-directed or pleasure-seeking behaviour), hypohedonia (restricted) or anhedonia (an
inability to feel pleasure in normally pleasurable activities).
• Increased depression and anxiety: including feeling numb, disassociated from their bodies, and
using behavioural patterns to mitigate feelings of anxiety.
• Experiencing body and muscle dysmorphia: which might include continuing to diet or exercise at
dangerous levels because of a perception that their body is too big, not muscular, not slim enough, etc.
According to recent research 1 in 10 young men in UK gyms are experiencing muscle dysmorphia (see
BBC Asian Network and Newsbeat, 2015).
• Exacerbating existing adversity and trauma: for example re-triggering, entrenching and re-
traumatising feelings of worthlessness or emotional distress caused by experiences of child sexual
abuse, coercion or exploitation. It is estimated that 1 in 3 adult mental health conditions relate directly to
adverse childhood experiences and childhood trauma.

6. Taking action
• Raise the visibility of issues surrounding young men’s body confidence and
self-harming behaviours.
• Support parents, teachers, young people and the children’s workforce to talk
positively about body concerns, mental health and healthy exercise.
• Ensure all young people have good access to PHSE and SRE in schools and
colleges - also addressing issues of body confidence, sexual imagery and
relationships consent.
• Increasing advice to parents, schools and children’s services about the use of
supplements and performance enhancing drugs amongst young men.
• Working with the media, health and fashion industries to challenge the idealised
depictions of slim, athletic and muscular young men's bodies and increasing
the diversity of male bodies and masculinities in the UK media - YoungMinds
supports the Body Image Code.
• Encouraging young men to share their experiences of body confidence and
creating safe environments for them to learn from each other on a peer to peer
basis.

7. Sliming down and
bulking up
Dr Marc Bush
Chief Policy Advisor, YoungMinds
@marc_bush / @youngmindsUK