Research links boys’ body ideals to gaming magazines

University of Illinois researchers recently studied the impact of video game magazine’s depictions of overly muscular male characters on the drive for muscularity among preadolescent boys. According to the News Bureau of the University of Illinois, the study consisted of two rounds of testing conducted one year apart with researchers administered questionnaires to groups of two to five boys, separated by visual barriers who were then asked to report the genres of magazines they read each week. “The boys’ drive for muscularity was gauged using a child-appropriate version of a standard “drive for muscularity” scale. Drive for muscularity was defined as desire for muscle mass.”

Professor Kristen Harrison, who conducted the study with doctoral student Bradley J. Bond, noted that, “In a nutshell, we found that exposure to video gaming magazines, which are immensely popular, increased boys’ subsequent drive for muscularity, more than exposure to other, more realistic ‘ideal-body’ magazines like sports, fashion and fitness” and that it was “significant regardless of how thin or fat boys perceived themselves to be.”

Is it safe to assume then, that the proliferation of video gaming magazines in the hands of young boys contributes to the increased influence it seems to have? I mean, I can appreciate the fruits of research as much as the next – and it is interesting – but doesn’t this research simply show that a more popular genre of magazine has a reasonably higher amount of influence?

Not so, apparently; Harrison suggests that there are two main reasons why the impact is seen through exposure to gaming magazines specifically: “Gaming magazines’ illustrations of exaggeratedly muscular bodies encourage young readers to take notice of the male form. They catch the eye because they depart so drastically from the typical male body.” And secondly, “male video game characters are frequently cast as superheroes, thereby promoting an association between hyper-muscularity and the power, control and agency that superheroes symbolize to children.”

After reading that, I couldn’t help but realize that comic books and their insanely muscled heroes were not mentioned as part of the research, but I suppose that’s got a whole other set of reasons and debates when it comes to influential literature for kids. But what they did specify was that the influence of body ideals is higher in caucasian boys than for for black boys. Not surprisingly, this was due to the number of white superhero-esque figures to black ones.

They also claim that this is the first published content analysis of video gaming magazines and hope that their findings “underscore the need to further investigate these magazines to better understand their role in promoting a hyper-muscular physique among boys and young men.”

Read [University of Illinois] Also Read [EarthTimes]