According to objectification theory, Westernized societies sexually objectify or commodify the
female body. Women experience objectification through constant evaluation (e.g., male gaze) and the
entertainment and advertising media. The latter repeatedly send the message to society in general, and
women in particular, that women are to be valued for what they look like, not for who they are. Specifically,
a thin beauty ideal is constantly glorified, and women are encouraged to perceive that if they are to
be valued by others they must attain this ideal. Objectification theory asserts that ongoing exposure to
the sociocultural belief that women are to be judged by how they look leads women to internalize others’
views of themselves. Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) refer to this process as self-objectification,
whereby individuals come to believe that they are indeed objects or commodities to be looked
at and evaluated. Self-objectification has been shown to result in appearance anxiety, body shame
(Fredrickson, Roberts, Noll, Quinn, & Twenge, 1998; Tiggemann & Lynch, 2001), and, ultimately,
negative psychological and health consequences such as depressive symptoms (Muehlenkamp &
Saris-Baglama, 2002), reduced body satisfaction, lowered self-esteem (Strelan et al., 2003), reduced
body esteem (McKinley, 1998), and restrained and disordered eating (Fredrickson et al., 1998;
Muehlenkamp & Saris-Baglama, 2002; Tiggemann & Lynch, 2001).
Although objectification theory was proposed ostensibly to explain the source of appearance anxiety
and body shame among women, we, and others(e.g., Morrison, Morrison, & Hopkins, 2003), believe
that at least one of its basic tenets may be sensibly applied to men. We acknowledge that men may
not experience evaluation by women to the same degree that women experience it from men. However,
a growing literature does indicate that, as for women, a likely source of men’s body dissatisfaction is the
entertainment and advertising media. Men are increasingly subject to articles and advertising in magazines,
and to role models in films and on television,that promote images of an ideal male physique
that is muscular, mesomorphic, and sharply defined (e.g., McCreary & Sasse, 2000; Morrison et al., 2003;
Morry & Staska, 2001; Pope, Olivardia, Gruber, &Borowiecki, 1999). As with the thin ideal for women,
such a physique is impossible for most men to attain (Salusso-Deonier, Markee, & Pedersen, 1993). For
example, Pope et al.’s (1999) analysis of the evolution of male action toys concluded that if one contemporary
toy (the GI Joe Extreme) was life-size, its biceps would be larger than any bodybuilder could possibly
attain.
Objectification theory would suggest that the proliferation of such images encourages men to
believe that the idealized male body is valued by society, and, therefore, in order to be valued men
must attain such a body. Accordingly, studies indicate that exposure to idealized images of male
bodies in the media is related to men’s body dissatisfaction (e.g., Harrison & Cantor, 1997; Lavine,
Sweeney, & Wagner, 1999). For example, Morry and Staska (2001) found that men who read fitness
magazines were more likely to express concern about their physical appearance and also to engage
in disordered eating. One might expect, then, that many men selfobjectify,
possibly because of media-driven pressures similar to those perceived by women. However, few
studies have included direct measures of the extent to which men’s self-objectification leads to the
negative psychological outcomes that have been observed among women. Further, the results are inconsistent.
For example, Fredrickson et al. (1998)found that self-objectification was positively related
to body shame and restrained eating among women but not men, whereas Morry and Staska (2001) reported
that higher self-objectification was associated with eating problems in both women and men. Thus,
in the present study we sought to clarify and add to our presently limited understanding of the extent
to which men self-objectify and, in turn, the impact of self-objectification on men’s body esteem and
self-esteem. As we indicated earlier, the principal aim of the study was to examine the extent to which selfobjectifying
men use exercise to respond to perceived sociocultural pressures to attain an idealized
body. A study by Strelan et al. (2003) is particularly instructive for our purposes, for it showed
that the relationship between young women’s selfobjectification and their body esteem and selfesteem
was mediated by their reasons for exercise. Women who self-objectify and who respond
by exercising for appearance-related reasons were more likely to experience reduced body esteem,
self-esteem, and body satisfaction than were low self-objectifiers who exercise for functional reasons,
such as health, fitness, mood, and/or enjoyment. In other words, it may be that for many women, attempts
to meet sociocultural expectations of the thin ideal through exercise serve only to exacerbate
their sense of appearance anxiety and body dissatisfaction.
The mediating effect of reasons for exercise observed by Strelan et al. (2003) has yet to be tested
among men. Thus, in the present study we sought to examine whether a similar response pattern is exhibited
by those men who perceive pressure to achieve a body ideal. To what extent do men, like women, view
exercise as a means of meeting perceived sociocultural expectations of an idealized body, and do such
efforts compound their appearance-related concerns in the same way as for women, that is, by reducing
their body esteem and self-esteem?We addressed these questions by proposing
four hypotheses. On the basis of previous research,we predicted, first, that increased self-objectification
among men would be related to decreased body esteem and self-esteem. Second, increased selfobjectification
among men who exercise would be positively related to exercising for appearancerelated
reasons and negatively related to exercising for health and fitness or mood and enjoyment
reasons. Third, exercising for appearance-related reasons would be negatively related to body esteem
and self-esteem, whereas exercising for health and fitness or mood and enjoyment reasons would be
positively related to these outcomes. Fourth, in line with Strelan et al.’s (2003) study with young
women, we expected that men’s reasons for exercise would mediate the relationship between
self-objectification and body esteem and selfesteem. In testing our hypotheses, we included a sample
of women to examine likely gender differences in self-objectification. The hypotheses stated above
were also tested with women. Further, guided by self-objectification theory, we predicted that women
would score higher than men on self-objectification. As a consequence of their higher self-objectification,
and consistent with some previous findings, appearance enhancement was expected to be a more important
reason for exercise among women than men, whereas health/fitness and mood/enjoyment
reasons would be less likely to be endorsed by women.