What were predominant themes found by White and Gillett in “Reading the muscular body?” How did various ads in Muscle & Fitness illustrate each theme?
What is “megarexia?
The first theme is "positing the reader as inferior". This accounts for majority of the ads in fitness magazines. Most of the ads are dietary supplements and they are pictured with a very large muscular man who is portrayed to take these supplements and advising the reader to take them to and you will look like him. This is not the case at all, but people read these magazines and believe it. They will then purchase the supplement because they know they are not as muscular as the man pictured in the photo and they feel "inferior". This is why supplement advertisements are so popular in these magazines, because everyone looks at them. The second themes is promise of transformation. Everyone has seen these advertisements of what an individual looked like before they took a dietary supplement and what they look like after. It usually is a huge difference. People may buy into these ads, which in all honesty, thats what they want you to do , and purchase these supplements and not achieve the same results. Lets just say, photoshop plays a big role in these photographs. The last themes is the muscular body as a sign of hegemonic masculinity. This basically is stating that the more muscular and powerful you are, the more masculine and dominate you are. This is shown in high amounts as you flip through the pages of any fitness magazine such as FLEX and Muscle and Fitness. All of the men you will see photographed in the magazine are very large and muscular.
Megarexia is the opposite of the eating disorder anorexia. Anorexia is when people believe they're too fat and often restrict food in hopes of losing weight. This is more common in females. The other end of the spectrum is a term called megarexia. This is more common in men and they feel like they can never get big enough. These individuals will always be in the gym, lifting weight that seems impossible, and their goal is to build muscle and get much bigger.
Janelle Campbell
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