Talking to boys about body image
(and how we can do better)
At 2.50 pm on a hot Friday in July, I was sitting in the Humanities' office, counting down the minutes until freedom. I heard a dreaded knock on the door: a student had been sent out of his class. Could I move him? Too exhausted to take him to another classroom, I tell Wafiq to pull up a chair and tell me why he's been sent out.
He said he'd been picked on by his teacher for sharing his beliefs. I ask him what these beliefs are. His response is 'that Andrew Tate is a good role model'. I take a deep breath in and exhale slowly.
This was the summer term of 2023, and Andrew Tate was a hot topic both in the classroom and the staffroom. In the classroom, admiration of his wealth and proclamations of his innocence could derail even the best-planned lesson. In the staffroom: How do you tackle the topic of sanctions? Class debates? An assembly? Ignore in the hope that a student doesn't tell a female Ofsted inspector to "go make them a sandwich?"
I always address the behaviour and comments and try to understand what thoughts and feelings are behind them, but it is hard: unpacking gender-based violence is emotionally exhausting. Sometimes, even I, as an RSHE specialist, don't fancy explaining the nuances of how misogynistic attitudes and behaviours contribute to rape culture for the 100th time to a group of vocally dubious students.
But, at that moment, I felt calm and curious.
So, I asked him why he thought Tate was a good role model. And his answer surprised me: "because he saves lives".
Wafiq then told me this story.
He said that there was a man who was fat and unhappy because no one wanted to marry him. This man messaged Tate, saying that he was going to kill himself because he was so sad and lonely. He said that Tate responded directly to the man and told him not to kill himself. Instead, Tate gave him some rules to follow - start working out, focus on your goals, and cut out social media. Wafiq told me that the man followed the rules, lost loads of weight, and found a wife, and they now live happily together in a house that he owns. Wafiq then told me that Tate was his inspiration to lose weight and bulk up.
I have not been able to stop thinking about this conversation over the last 7 months.
Unbeknown to him, Wafiq nailed a perfect articulation - in my opinion - of some of the key challenges which many men and children across the world are facing right now. And I think the naivety with which Wafiq tells this story shows the wolves in sheep's clothing: the influencers and brands who are exploiting these problems to promote misogynistic beliefs and for financial gain. This is happening across the internet: Andrew Tate happens to be the example Wafiq used, but there are plenty more just like him.
This conversation with Wafiq led me to four reflections on my practice as a classroom teacher, PSHRE coordinator, RSHE specialist, and also just as a human who exists in this world and talks to people about these topics. I would like to share these with you in the hope they might be helpful when addressing these topics.
How successfully are we distinguishing between concepts of health and body image?
There is a reported uptick in young men's preoccupations with their bodies. Specifically, how muscled they are. When I talk to young men in the classroom about this, they speak about wanting to be 'healthy'. I ask them to describe what healthy means, and they often start describing how a person looks.
To reflect on ideas about health, I have an activity where I show students photos of 5 people.
A slim white woman cutting vegetables
A young, muscular Black man lifting weights
An Asian wrinkled elderly woman, smiling
A white man in a wheelchair with one leg
A mixed-race fat* woman, holding a medal, wearing sports gear
I ask students to tell me who they think is the healthiest person and why. Most either pick the white woman cutting vegetables or the Black man lifting weights. They then describe the person's physique and say that they clearly work out and eat vegetables. A couple might pick the smiling older woman, with the smart logic that she's the oldest looking and therefore has lived a healthy lifestyle, and she's smiling, so she must be happy.
I then add the following captions to the images and ask them if it changes their minds.
A slim white woman cutting vegetables - smokes 10 cigarettes a day
A young, muscular Black man lifting weights - is receiving treatment for an eating disorder
An Asian wrinkled elderly woman, smiling, swims in the sea every day
A white man in a wheelchair with one leg - is a professional mental health motivational speaker
A mixed-race fat woman holding a medal wearing sports gear - is an Olympic heavyweight gold medalist.
This exercise normally leads to a number of conversations. For example, it helps us to consider how 'health' isn't always visible. Students often comment on how race and racism can impact our ideas of what looks healthy. Further questions arise about whether this is enough information to judge them on - should we know what country **they live in? What is their housing situation? What are their jobs? What other factors contributed to health? These questions are a great way of considering our bias, especially around weight. It is also a great opener when discussing fatphobia.
I wish that Wafiq had this lesson when he was younger, as I think it might have been helpful for him to see and hear that a 'healthy' man doesn't have to be ripped. Some classics for good health are strong relationships, movement, access to a variety of foods and access to secure housing. Arguably, without these, it doesn't really matter how toned your abs are.
And it might have helped him see the reverse - that being ripped doesn't necessarily mean that you're 'healthy' or happy, as becoming fixated on your body and weight can often lead to disordered eating, dysmorphia and anxiety.
However, I also know that this would not have been enough, as a lot of the content being fed to Wafiq via his algorithm will also be situating his body and looks as central to his ability to be attractive and financially successful, not just healthy.
2. How well are we teaching young people about systemic issues?
Wafiq was 15 when he told me this story. He has lost 2 years of education to COVID. The teaching retention crisis will make it harder for him to catch up on this missed education. He lives in an area where it is estimated that 37% of residents live in poverty. He is living through an economic and ecological crisis. Unsurprisingly, about 5 students per classroom have a mental health problem. These are just a handful of the challenges that this young man is facing.
I would love to be able to tell Wafiq that there are 3 magic rules he can follow which will give him a wife, a house and ultimately happiness. However, there aren't. What's more, he is not in his current condition because he is not following the right rules. His living conditions are not his fault.
When we fail to show complexity and nuance, we leave the door open to hyper-individualism. Wafiq's story shows real anxieties around health, economic security and care, which he is right to have in contemporary British society. And the solutions to these are not achieved by individuals but by groups of people coming together to solve material conditions.
A lack of nuance also paves the way for dangerous, oversimplified narratives. And typically, these narratives tend towards blaming our difficult conditions on 'other', more marginalised groups.
3. How are we developing our digital literacy to help young people do the same?
When I challenged Wafiq on Tate's misogynistic beliefs about and his violent behaviour towards women (aka rape and trafficking convictions) he was dismissive. When I questioned him further, his dismissal seemed to come from harmful misconceptions around sexual assault (the women were lying), a mistrust of mainstream news outlets (he said that they were untrustworthy and out to get Tate) and a firm belief that Tate was fundamentally a good person who sought to motivate others to be successful.
Harmful misconceptions about sexual assault are pervasive in mainstream society, so this did not surprise me. However, what did strike me was Wafiq's read of Tate - the only information I had ever read about him was that he sexually assaulted multiple women, so how could we both have such strong beliefs about a person's nature?
One reason is the giant chasm between the realities we live in, which is shaped by our online lives.
We all know about algorithms, but because of the algorithms, we can never truly know the experience another person is having online. Me and Wafiq are fed entirely different content: I'm served content about body acceptance and gender fluidity, whereas Wafiq is receiving content which normalises assault and violent language and using techniques such as Dueting and looksmaxxing.
In a recent training delivered by the fantastic Everyone's Invited, they dug deep into this divide on how the online world is experienced and highlighted the different tactics which influencers use to promote misogynistic content. One example is the use of a 'misogyny sandwich' whereby influencers will first write a post about mental health or family. The second will be a post about misogyny and control (e.g. "ignore your girlfriend for a day if she's not texting you back to show her what it's like to live without you") followed by a post on health or fitness. This gives the appearance of credibility, respectability and a 'niceness' of their overall accounts.
Furthermore, if Wafiq is engaging with Andrew Tate's content, then he is undoubtedly engaging with more content influenced by the Incel movement and increasingly prevalent far-right ideologies which push back against gender equality and justify gender-based violence. These movements grew up online and use language and communication that can develop at a breakneck speed.
How can we keep young people safe if we do not understand the world they are living in? We must put more energy, resources and time into understanding the online landscape in order to help our young people to navigate it.
4. How are we promoting self-esteem and self-worth which is not wholly centred around bodies?
Emma Dabiri's new book Disobedient Bodies contrasts ideas of beauty in the West to other cultures across the globe. One of the most interesting features of comparison is the emphasis that Western culture places on visual representation over other forms of knowledge and expression. She highlights how we privilege sight over all other senses.
However, Dabiri illustrates how this is not the case in all cultures. Ideas of beauty do not solely lie in the physical.
Of course, we all know this too. We know that being kind is supposed to be better than being hot. We know that some bodies are privileged above others (e.g. white non-disabled bodies), and yet we all still hold a lot of bias when it comes to bodies and attraction.
These complexities are even more acute as a teenager. Adolescence is a challenging time physically. Your body is changing shape, and the [changes to your brain make anxiety and depression more common](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-7-things-to-know#:~:text=Because the teen brain is, help teens deal with stress.). It also tends to be a time when people comment on your body a lot and any weight gain/ loss you are going through.
For adults, this is the time when all adults should be descending on young people to help them to boost their self-esteem - help them to discover talents, praise them for effort, tell them that it's fine to be embarrassed, give them new experiences, show them a world outside of themselves, remind them that they are worthy of love whatever they look like.
As a society, I think we have gotten better at doing this for young women, but we are far from perfect. However, we have dropped the ball on our young men when it comes to body image. And as I've shown, this has pushed them into harmful spaces online.
But I believe we can and must begin to address these challenges that young men face.
I appreciate that I've posed big questions without easy answers. But luckily, there are lots of incredible people doing amazing work around each one of these questions.
Below are some resources I have found inspiring/ interesting in case you would like further information.
Further reading:
Bodies Under Siege, Sian Norris
Disobedient Bodies, Emma Dabiri
Mask Off: Masculinity Redefined, JJ Bola
Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How it Affects Us All, Laura Bates
The will to change, Bell Hooks
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