The unattainability of the male body standard receives less attention for two easily identified reasons: the relative invisibility of males in this world of the male gaze, and the absence of anorexia or a similar disorder in men. While women often undertake deeply harmful dietary habits to attain what they consider the perfect body, men could not attain the idealized male form by similar means. Instead they must do healthy things like exercising and eating well. This serves to highlight how misinformed discussions of anorexia truly are — the problem isn’t nearly so much the female beauty ideal as it is sexual abuse perpetrated against young girls — but it also prevents men from having the sort of heart-rending stories of self-abuse women have.
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