For the Young Men Who Hate Their Bodies

Walks with Uncle Henry is a weekly video essay where I take you on a walk through the trails and small farm of my rural Northeast home, discussing the issues facing young folks today. This week, we discuss the growing issue of male body image—social media influencers, body dysmorphia, “bigorexia“, and the concerning number of young men using anabolic steroids as a result of all of this. Here’s the script for this video: On the side of the internet that I avoid, there’s a growing, albeit silent, epidemic brewing—a concerning and ever-increasing amount of young men hate their bodies. Of course, this is nothing new, but once again, social media is fanning the flames of insecurity and turning an issue into a massive problem. Today, fitness influencers are stopping at nothing to normalize unrealistic and unsustainable body standards. I feel awful for anyone with a body who has to be subjected to this kind of thing, especially at a young, malleable age. Anabolic steroid use is skyrocketing among young men who feel pressured to look a certain way. Now, I want to be vulnerable and open here for a moment. I have spent nearly every day of my boyhood into manhood hating my body. I was always either too scrawny or too heavy. I hated that I carried my weight in my back, giving me my family’s famous love handles. I remember back in middle school, walking back from gym class with my abdomen in flames from sucking in my stomach for the entire duration of gym class when they made us swim with the girls. In high school, I skipped the swim classes altogether, fibbing to my gym teacher by telling him I didn’t show up because I didn’t know how to swim. Back in my day, we did shirts and skins as teams in basketball, skins meaning that team played shirtless. I remember praying that I’d be put on shirts as the teams were divided up by our coach. As an adult, my discontent with my body turned into resentment. Now, I’m extremely active. I run just about daily, I’m out here in the woods hiking all the time, I lift, I hit the heavy bag, and besides my occasional mac and cheese binge, I eat healthy and simply, and yet, my body is far from gracing the sultry black-and-white Calvin Klein underwear advertisements. Despite my fair attempts at extreme diets and strict workout regimens, my body pretty much stayed the same. But what I’ve really been doing this entire time is not appreciating all that my body is capable of and how resilient it truly is. I could rephrase what I just said above in a positive way. Isn’t it incredible that I have a body that can run every day? And lift heavy things, and carry me miles through the woods, all while crushing the occasional mac and cheese? Amazing. Last year my body carried a canoe on its back 7 miles into the wilderness—who the hell cares that it can’t build an Instagram following? And yes, even with my love handles intact, I was able to court and wed an absolute babe who sometimes catches me criticizing my lack of iron abs in the mirror and will put her arms around me and say, “You look great!” I rarely get sick, I frequently push my body’s limits, and then it recovers and we do it again. My body is crushing it, and what an absolute blessing to be healthy. Now, here’s the weird thing: Many of those influencers you see on the ’gram, distorting your body image, who spend 8 hours a day in the gym—most of them aren’t healthy at all. Many are on performance-enhancing drugs, extremely restrictive diets, and when that doesn’t shake out perfectly, they’ll use some app or Photoshop to make the imperfections disappear. And of course, they’re not doing it to be healthy; they’re often doing it to sell you supplements or a workout program. Making you feel bad about yourself is the oldest marketing trick in the book, and it pays to stay vigilant when you see these folks parading their bodies around the internet. Love your body. Put it through hell. Run fast. Lift heavy. Do things you didn’t know were possible. And remember, your body is for doing cool shit, not for likes. Get out there and do the cool shit. And if you don’t look like an Abercrombie model after, learn to love your body anyway—it’s the only one you have.