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FEEDING HARD BODIES: FOOD AND MASCULINITIES IN MEN'S FITNESS MAGAZINES

2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 13; Issue: 1-2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/07409710590915355

1542-3484

Fabio Parasecoli,

Sports, Gender, and Society

Abstract Body image has become relevant to many men, as the flourishing of male fitness magazines and the consequent development of theoretical studies on the subject demonstrate. In this article, I will examine the close connections between food, masculinities, and body image in male fitness magazines, a booming sector of the fitness and wellness publishing industry. I will attempt a qualitative analysis of editorial features and advertising pages of the October 2002 issues of Men's Health, Men's Fitness, and Muscle and Fitness. I will also analyze Men's Health Guide to Women, a supplement to Men's Health published in the same month, designed as a sort of a how-to manual for men who want to increase their success with women. Since I will deal with communication and media, I will adopt a semiotic approach, emphasizing how the frequent references to food and eating, which clearly constitute a deep concern, actually construct a coherent discourse about masculinities, using words, images, and metaphors as signs within a complex code that needs to be deciphered. Notes 1See also Connell, R. W. 1995. Masculinities. University of California Press. Connell, R.W. 2000. The Men and the Boys. University of California Press. Bordo, S. The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private. New York: Farra, Straus and Giroux, 1999. 2See the company's official website, www.rodale.com 3Harrison, G., Pope, Katharine, A., Phillips, R. O. 2000. The Adonis Complex. Touchstone Books, New York. 4Connell, R. W. 2000. The Man and the Boys. Polity, Cambridge, p. 12. 5Connell, R. W. 1995. Masculinities. University of California Press, Berkeley CA. 6Connell, R. W. 2000. The Man and the Boys. Polity, Cambridge, p. 57. 7Bronki, M. 1998. The Male Body in the Western Mind. Harvard Gay and Lesbian review, 5(4):28. 8Jeffords, S. 1989. The Remasculinization of America: Gender and the Vietnam War. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. 9Wienke, C. 1998. Negotiating the male body: Men, masculinity, and cultural ideas. The Journal of Men's Studies, 6(3):255. 10Gerschick T. and Miller, A. 1994. Gender Identities at the Crossroads of Masculinity and Physical Disability. Masculinites, 2:34–55. 11Marion Nestle. 2002. Food Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 1–30. 12Naomi Wolf. 1991. The Beauty Myth: How images of beauty are used against women. New York: W. Morrow. 13 Muscle & Fitness, November 2002, p. 1. 14 Muscle & Fitness, November 2002, pp. 138–139. 15 Muscle & Fitness, November 2002, p. 87. 16 Muscle & Fitness, November 2002, pp. 58–60. 17 Muscle & Fitness, November 2002, pp. 20–21. 18 Muscle & Fitness, November 2002, p. 204. 19 Muscle & Fitness, November 2002, p. 17. 20 Muscle & Fitness, November 2002, p. 65. 21 Muscle & Fitness, November 2002, p. 70. 22 Muscle & Fitness, November 2002, p. 57. 23 Men's Fitness, "10 ways to leave your blubber," October 2002, pp. 46–50. 24For the reasons behind this approach, see Marion Nestle, 2002. Food Politics. University of California Press. 25 Muscle & Fitness, "Cut back on Java for a leaner, healthier diet," November 2002, p. 44. 26 Men's Fitness, "Expert's tip: Cut the bad stuff in half," October 2002, p. 50. 27 Men's Fitness, "The power of soy," October 2002, pp. 134–136. 28 Men's Health, "Nutrition bulletin," October 2002, p. 52. 29 Men's Health, "Eat this not that," October 2002, p. 72. 30 Muscle & Fitness, "Crash course in nutrition," October 2002, pp. 158–162. 31 Men's Fitness, "Quick start three week program," October 2002, p. 77. 32 Men's Fitness, "Going the distance," October 2002, pp. 118–121. 33Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter. Routledge, New York 1993, pp. 1–23. Butler limits herself to sex, but I do think that also food can be approached in the same way. She wonders: "Given that normative heterosexuality is clearly not the only regulatory regime operative in the production of bodily contours or setting the limits of bodily intelligibility, it makes sense to ask what other regimes of regulatory production contour the materiality of bodies." p. 17. 34"Power must be understood in the first instance as a multiplicity of force relations, as the process which, through ceaseless struggles and confrontations, transforms, strengthens or reverses them: as the support which these force relations find in one another, thus forming a chain or a system, or on the contrary, the disjunction and contradictions which isolate them from one another; and lastly, as the strategies in which they take effect, whose general design or institutional crystallization is embodied in the state apparatus, in the formulations of the law, in the various social hegemonies." Michel Foucault, 1990. The History of Sexuality Vol. I. Vintage Books, New York, p. 93. 35 Muscle & Fitness, "Go fish," November 2002, pp. 168–174. 36 Men's Fitness, "Science of sandwich," October 2002, 96–98. 37 Men's Health, "A man, a can, a plan," October 2002, pp. 66. 38 Muscle & Fitness, "Pork slims down," November 2002, p. 68. 39 Muscle & Fitness, "Home-baked and healthy," November 2002, p. 206. 40 Men's Health Guide to Women, "How to feed a naked woman," October 2002, pp. 56–59. 41 Men's Health Guide to Women, "Better sex naturally," October 2002, pp. 146–151. 42 Men's Health, "The sex for life diet," October 2002, pp. 156–159. 43 Men's Health Guide to Women, "22 ways to make an impression," October 2002, pp. 4–5. 44 Men's Health Guide to Women, "24 rules for a successful relationship," October 2002, pp. 166–167. 45 Men's Health Guide to Women, "9 tricks of domestic bliss," October 2002, pp. 208–209. 46 Men's Fitness, "Sweet tooth?" November 2002, p. 210. 47 The Selected Melanie Klein, 1986. Edited by Juliet Mitchell, The Free Press. 48Bordo, S. 1993. Unbearable weight. University of California Press, p. 3. 49Jacques Lacan, Le stade du miroir comme formateur de la fonction du Je. In Ecrits, Editions du Seuil, Pairs 1966. See also Slavoj Zizek, 1989. The Supreme Object of Ideology. Verso, London, pp. 121–129. 50Kristeva, J. 1982. Powers of Horror. Columbia University Press, New York, p. 1. 51Bordo, S. 1993. Unbearable Weight. University of California Press, p. 3.