This is an issue dedicated to the male body.
Now, you’d be forgiven for thinking that every issue of Men’s Health – back since some chiselled dude with pearly-white teeth was first photographed striding out of the surf – has been dedicated to the male body. And, of course, in many ways it has. This magazine was established to help readers like you make sense of your lot and realise your potential. Very quickly that became shorthand for honing, training, testing and flexing the physique that you’ve inherited – and yes, building bigger biceps.
It’s a shorthand I confess to have always felt ill at ease with. For two reasons.
The first is my opinion that if you’re going to call yourself ‘Men’s Health’, it’s incumbent upon you to deliver for most (if not all) men and cater for most (if not all) areas of their health. It’s a pretty broad brief. To my mind, focusing on the physical without the mental doesn’t cut it. Plus, it’s just not cool.
Secondly, as I’ve mentioned on these pages numerous times before – perhaps too many times – Ido not have a six-pack. Sure, there have been visible abs in the past – at least three, maybe four – but at this very moment in time, and for some years building up to it, I am packless. This is not because I haven’t played sport all my life, or don’t exercise most days, or eat nutritious lunches, or experiment with intermittent fasting, or regularly embrace physical challenges. It’s because I’m 46 years old and enjoy beer, sausages, wine and Haribo.
I’d like to say I’m happy with that, but the truth is rarely have I introduced myself as the editor of Men’s Health without feeling a pang of inadequacy or dishonesty. These days my personal goals are not to build a V-shaped back or get arms like Chris Hemsworth – they’re merely to feel happier and more comfortable in my own skin.
I know I’m not alone in this. Just this morning I saw a post on Instagram by an acquaintance who runs a company called Frahm. His name is Nick and he’s one of the good guys. Frahm makes excellent field jackets and for every sale they donate £10 to CALM. He decided to take the unusual step of posting a personal message from the brand account (@frahmjacket) because he was exercised by a headline he had read in the weekend papers: ‘Superfit in midlife – How to get a CEO body – 16 foods all men should be eating’. This is what he wrote.
‘Marketing and media pressure is everywhere. Women have been made to feel crap about themselves for way longer than men (and they’re apparently not CEOs either). Now, we get to feel inadequate, too. I’m a 49-yearold CEO and I can tell you: you don’t want my body. I’m pretty fit. On a good stretch I’ll do eight hours of exercise a week. I do it because it’s fun (yeah, I’m one of those weirdos) and it stops me feeling sad… I also eat shit
