Diners, Dudes, and Diets by Emily J. H. Contois

Author:Emily J. H. Contois
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press

Diet Culture in Men’s Magazines and Diet Books, 1990s–2000s

Beyond men’s small but consistent participation in Weight Watchers, men’s diet culture further blossomed in the 1990s and early 2000s with men’s health and fitness magazines, such as Men’s Health, and diet books that drew a larger male audience, such as Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution, The Paleo Diet, and The Abs Diet. These sources of health, fitness, and weight loss advice voiced anxieties about modern life and identity, as they served as precursors to the weight loss industry’s programs for men, and their advertising campaigns that emphasized the dude. Men’s Health in particular paved the way for men’s diet programs. Rodale Press piloted Men’s Health magazine in 1986, but by 1994 its circulation numbers were double that of industry-leading men’s magazines such as Esquire and GQ, proving the significant potential for men’s periodicals dedicated to active living, health, and fitness.34 Culturally, however, such magazines produced contradictory models of masculinity that fervently endorsed self-regulation, personal responsibility for health, whiteness, and heteronormativity.

Rodale Press and Men’s Health editors further extended their emphasis on personal responsibility when they published The Abs Diet: The Six-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean for Life in 2004. Alongside recipes for “Macho Meatballs” and exercises for sculpting a six pack, The Abs Diet authors endorsed a slim and muscular body as part of ideal and erotic citizenship. In the book’s opening pages, the authors declared, “When you have abs, you’re telling the world that you’re a disciplined, motivated, confident, and healthy person—and hence a desirable partner.”35 Abs form a physical and cultural shorthand for adjudicating “good” health and conventional attractiveness, imbuing their pursuit with importance and anxiety.36 Unsurprisingly, searching online for “how to get six pack abs” returns more than 80 million results. These include not just ab-centric workout routines, but the nutritional admonition that “abs are made in the kitchen,” which the Powerful Yogurt brand built upon, as shown in chapter 3. Achieving and maintaining abs represents a key attribute of productive male citizenship, defined by whiteness, normative masculinity, and proper middle-class consumption.

As discussed in chapter 1, Men’s Health also broached dieting for men within the pages of their cookbooks, such as Guy Gourmet, which promoted brawny dude food alongside a fit muscular body, foodie sensibilities, and masculine prowess in both the kitchen and the gym. This juxtaposition echoes the “bulimic double bind” depicted on the covers of women’s magazines that promise, for example, the secret to losing 10 pounds alongside a recipe for the best chocolate cake.37 Despite this similarity between men’s and women’s magazines, Guy Gourmet upheld conventional notions of male appetite and satisfaction, typically withheld from women. Guy Gourmet framed maintaining one’s weight in the masculine, athletic terms of “stay lean.” It placed weight loss within an individual man’s controlled desires, assertive goals, and wholly subjective intensions to lose the weight he wants.

Other diet books published in the 1990s and early 2000s appealed to men with masculine diet fare. They similarly hailed and applauded the productive, healthy, male citizen.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.