College men face Adonis Complex
Like many college campuses, SMU is no stranger to eating disorders. Fliers are placed around the Rotunda every year professing the prominence of anorexia, bulimia or other related dangerous body obsessions in much of SMU’s female population.
Unfortunately, the statistic reports only half the problem. A trip to SMU’s Cinco Center offers a glimpse into an often ignored body image problem in males.
A disorder often referred to as “The Adonis Complex” affects millions of American men. An emphasis on being bigger, stronger or more disciplined men is linked to a fervent push to meet the standards of a socialized ideal of the perfect male figure.
The term is extracted from Greek mythology where Adonis, a half-man, half-god figure, was considered the epitome of masculine beauty. The disorder is also known as “muscle dysmorphia,” “reverse anorexia” or “bigorexia” and is characterized by an obsessive drive to add muscle through excessive lifting, fasting and drug use. This obsessive preoccupation with body size and muscularity can often interfere with careers and relationships.
“Some guys become obsessed,” said Dustin Odham, a junior marketing major who frequents the weight room as part of his daily routine. “Pop culture plays a huge role. It encourages you, almost demands that you work out. All the guys feel the pressure.”
For years, advertisements, magazines, television and films have bombarded women with images of impossibly beautiful models. Now, with the rise of magazines such as Men’s Fitness and chiseled Calvin Klein models, many critics are worried that a body-centric media may affect men in the same way.
College-age men are especially susceptible to these body-image issues, often resorting to laxatives, vomiting, restrictive eating and steroid use in the name of muscle enhancement.
In his first year, former SMU student Dustin Dinsmore ventured into Dedman to see what all the buzz was about.
“I was a skinny little kid. I wanted to get big and strong,” he said.
The discipline Dinsmore developed from that initial motivation for strength and size has become a trait he has maintained into his post-graduate life.
In his book, The Adonis Complex, Dr. Roberto Olivardia said that 15 percent of the 1,000 men surveyed in his research expressed a desire to add 28 pounds of muscle weight to their bodies.
“There’s an unspoken pressure to conform to a certain body image. Its everywhere. And girls pick muscular guys,” Dinsmore said.
Dinsmore works out five days a week for about an hour and a half a day. He says that a large percentage of the wannabe Arnold Schwarzeneggers are what he calls “big talkers” with a desire for size and strength stemming from aesthetic motivation.
While a regular workout routine can be beneficial to health and physique, when does it become obsessive?
Conrad Guevara, who recently graduated from SMU, works out three hours a day, six days a week.
Guevara says that he works out for the feeling of euphoria, stress relief and an overall passion for weight. He doesn’t believe that concern over body image is always a problem.
“I started lifting when I was a freshman. I had big expectations,” he said. “Arnold Schwarzenegger has always been someone I looked at as a model for what I wanted to achieve,” Guevara said.
Guevara remembers being crazy about it at first. He’d lift almost every day and run six to eight miles afterward for cardiovascular activity. His initial reasons for working out were about vanity.
However, Guevara says that injuries caused by overwork and not being smart about his lifting led him to re-evaluate his motivations.
“I make time for [weightlifting] in my life. I will do it. If I have to come in at four in the morning to get it done before work, I will. When I was in school, I was here every day at 7:30 a.m. on the dot,” Guevara said.
Guevara believes his passion for weight lifting is all a part of the consistently healthy lifestyle he strives to maintain.
“I am obsessed to an extent. Part of [weightlifting] is the aspect of always looking at oneself, always striving for an increased muscle definition,” he said. “I go for the striation in the veins. Weightlifting is like an art. You study every contour to perfect it.”
Odham believes the key to weightlifting and working out is the balance it produces in your life.
“When you start sacrificing all of your free time, or weightlifting cuts into school work, I think its become unhealthy. Three hours plus seems excessive,” he said. “I think it’s bad when you start hurting your body and sacrificing your time to fit the pop culture ‘norm.'”
Some lifters believe that the pressure doesn’t come from the media, but from the obsessive weight room culture itself.
Sophomore Alan Bass understands the lifting scene that has developed and surrounds “workout junkies” at SMU.
“Some people come in at the same time every day because they have to make an appearance. They want to get ripped or jacked and this environment offers them a place to pursue that,” Bass said. “I think it’s about insecurity.”
Bass believes many men in the Cinco Center community harbor the idea that attaining their fitness goals will gain them more respect and more women.
The drive for physical perfection accompanies many men’s sense of achieving successful ends in their daily lives. The Adonis complex consumes males who carry expectations for success that are inseparable from their body images.
“The discipline moves into all aspects of your life, and I see that as a good thing,” Guevara said.
Dinsmore says that self-discipline, self-motivation and setting goals are all good things for lifting and life.
“No one’s going to hold your hand and make you do it. You do it on your own,” he said.
Olivardia and co-authors, Harrison Pope and Katherine A. Phillips point to the rising power of women in society for the increasingly objectified portrayal of men as sex objects.
But when asked about the Adonis complex, Guevara classified the body-image obsessive drive as “a female thing.”
“What kind of “real man” goes to a group session to discuss his addiction to the gym?” he said.
