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FRIDAY, Aug. 11 (HealthDay News) -- New research on how men and women view their bodies shows that women who accept their looks are more likely to eat healthy, but men feeling pressure to have a lean, muscular image may engage in unhealthy eating and exercise behavior.
Presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, in New Orleans, an Ohio State University study found that men with low opinions of their bodies engaged in dangerous behaviors, such as eating disorders, steroid use, and an unhealthy preoccupation with weightlifting. Companion research presented at the meeting found that women who accept their bodies are more likely to eat healthy.
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The male study included 285 college students who were asked a series of questions to determine how much pressure they felt to be muscular and lean from family, friends, romantic partners and the media. The more pressure the men perceived, the more they felt they had to live up to the muscular ideals.
"They start to believe that the only attractive male body is a muscular one. And when they internalize that belief, they judge themselves on that ideal and probably come up short, because it is not a realistic portrayal of men," study author Tracy Tylka, assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State, said in a prepared statement.
The more the men in the study were dissatisfied with their bodies, the more likely they were to engage in unhealthy behaviors in an attempt to change their bodies.
There's a difference between men who exercise and change their eating habits for health reasons and men who do these things because they feel pressure to improve their bodies, Tylka noted.
"It is good to exercise, to lift weights, and to eat the foods that make your body function well," she said. "But it is not good to be preoccupied with gaining muscle mass. Those that are preoccupied are not working out to get healthier, they are working out to bulk up. They are not eating healthy, they are cutting out major food groups like carbohydrates and eating massive amounts of protein."
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-- Robert Preidt
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