Ciarán Brennanweighs up the pros and cons of some popular men's health and fitness magazines
IF YOUR latest list of reading material has included articles such as Fit for the Beach, Hard Abs Made Easy, Last Minute Muscle or Burn More Fat, there's a good chance you've been reading one or more of the many men's health and fitness magazines that adorn newsagents' shelves every month.
Magazines for the health-conscious male - Men's Health, Men's Fitnessand Healthy for Men- have been around for quite a while and their longevity would indicate that they have a dedicated core of readers.
But are they beneficial in highlighting men's health issues and do they have a role to play in getting men thinking about their health and acting on dealing with unhealthy habits or lack of fitness?
With more than a passing interest in health and fitness, occasionally I've picked up a few of these mags and I have to concede I'm a bit of a sceptic about their value. I view them in the same light as the school study timetable where you spend most of your time devising the ultimate timetable for studying rather than just getting down to business and hitting the books.
In the same way, I look upon these magazines as something for people who would rather read about getting fit rather than just lacing up a pair of runners and hitting the track. But maybe I'm just being unfair.
"If they raise people's awareness of looking after their health, then that overall is a good thing. Prevention definitely has a great part to play in future illnesses," says Dr Mel Bates from the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP).
The problem, if it can be called that, with a lot of men's health and fitness magazines, he says, is that they are usually preaching to the converted.
"I have no science behind it but I suspect the people who buy those magazines are probably doing a lot already for themselves and concerned about their health and maintaining good health standards. They are the honours students looking for the extra 5-10 per cent," he says.
In that regard, they suffer from the same problems as any health promotion campaign or message.
"One of the universal problems anybody has preaching a particular health message - whether it is a men's magazine or the health research bureau or the HSE or the ICGP - is the target audience. Very often the people who need your help most are the very ones who are least likely to read these things."
From their front covers featuring young guys with rippling muscles and flat stomachs to the intense exercise programmes featured throughout, these mags are more likely to turn off couch potatoes who feel these levels of fitness are beyond them so why bother. In that sense they are more likely to appeal to the minority of elite fitness fanatics.
"If you take Men's Healthand open the magazine, there is a lot of great information in it but information in itself is useless unless it is applicable to the individual," says Chinese medical practitioner Dr Shane Murnaghan.
That said, each of the three magazines I read recently carried case studies of men who either lost weight or transformed their lives through getting fit or survived cancer and cycled America. But with each taking up just one page in more than 100, they smack of tokenism before you're back into regular articles about achieving the perfect six-pack, muscular chest or rippling quad muscles.
And that focus on perfect abs and bulging biceps can present its own problems, according to some observers.
"Anecdotally there does seem to have been an increase in eating disorders among males in recent years," says Ruth Ní Eidhin, communications officer at www.bodywhys.ie, the eating disorders association of Ireland.
"This may be due to a greater openness about the reality that eating disorders can affect men too, but the influence of certain media messages aimed at men would certainly seem to be a factor."
The standard cover images of a lean, muscular "ideal" can serve to create or exacerbate body image issues and low self- esteem, which in turn can increase a person's vulnerability to developing an eating disorder, she says.
"It has long been acknowledged that certain media messages aimed at women - that of a very specific image of 'ideal beauty' - has this kind of impact in terms of body image and feelings of self-worth. We are now seeing the development of very similar, if not identical, issues, among men."
Murnaghan says magazines can create a "wannabe" effect and puts pressure on men to achieve sometimes impossible goals in terms of health, body image and personal achievement.
"If you don't have rippling abs, a superbike, a yacht, a 5 series BMW, can shoot straight and box or have a house on the Riviera, then you are not up to speed. It does create a false sense of identity."
Murnaghan, Ní Eidhin and Bates all agree that men's health and fitness magazines can have a beneficial effect in getting across messages about keeping fit and being healthy.
"Men's health magazines can certainly play a positive role - across the whole mental health sector, for example, there are huge issues around men feeling less willing or able to acknowledge an issue in their own lives because of an increased stigma, and these magazines may present an opportunity to encourage men to speak about issues of health and wellbeing in a more open way," says Ní Eidhin.
And in their defence, all of the latest issues of these magazines carry good quantities of information on nutrition and preparation of healthy meals. However, out and out stories on health issues were thin enough on the ground which was particularly disappointing for Men's Healthwhich carried just two features of just four pages in total.
And both Men's Healthand Men's Fitnessseem to feel a burning need to also include a fair sprinkling of stories about sex and how to bed the babes which gives them a bit of "lads' mag" feeling.
At the end of the day though, mags that inform men on how to get fit and healthy are probably more beneficial than ones that tell them to smoke and drink until you fall over. "I would say their net effect is probably positive," says Bates.