Fueled by social media, muscle dysmorphia in boys and men is on the rise

As a young boy, Sam was used to people sharing their opinions on his body. Starting from the age of five, his parents frequently told him he was too skinny and that he needed to eat more. “Men need to be big,” he remembers his parents saying, so they could grow up and become providers for their families.

It was the start of what would become a lifelong self-consciousness about body size for Sam. After coming out as queer in college, Sam struggled to navigate what he described as “gay men’s hyper-fixation on the ‘perfect body,’” a culture that celebrates muscular, chiseled bodies as the pinnacle of queer masculinity. He became preoccupied with how his muscles looked in the gym mirror. His diet fluctuated along with his mental health, which was increasingly tied to his pursuit of a bigger, stronger-looking body.

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