Different perceptions of perfection Building a better body?

When I first wrote this article I had signed up for a sponsored swim, in which I was going to swim the length of the channel, 22 miles, over a twelve week period. As I had to up the amount I swam, one of my biggest worries was that my body shape would change, and that I could end up with a somewhat triangular swimmer’s physique. This got me to wondering why some people actually strive to completely change their body shape. (I have now signed up for the same sponsored swim as part of a team and I need to swim half the length of the channel, 11 miles, over a twelve week period) This article explores the history of body building, what attracts people to the pastime, and the lengths they will go to, to build a better body.

In today’s society we are constantly bombarded by unrealistic body images from on the catwalk, to in magazines, and on the television. The pressure to alter transform and modify our bodies to meet cultural ideals affects many people who can develop an obsession with body image. These messages suggest it’s not ok to leave our bodies in its natural state, and we should do what we can to try and change our bodies and our appearance. The body building industry is no different, and the pastime is promoted by suggesting you can: ‘build a better body’ and ‘build a strong muscular and impressive physique’.

Brief history of Body Building
There are reports that suggest body building goes back as far as 11th century India, where lifting heavy stones called ‘Nals’ was a popular pastime. In ancient Greece and Egypt they also lifted stones in order to gain strength and power, and transform the body. However whether this was done to keep fit or to look good is unsure. Prior to the 19th century strongmen contests were about showing strength and not muscles, however by the end of the century, the emphasis was beginning to change from athletic body building to aesthetic body building.

Known as the ‘father of body building’ Eugen Sandow from Prussia advocated obtaining the ‘perfect physique’, which he believed was close to the proportions of the classical Greek and Roman statues. He was one of the first people to display his muscles in front of an audience, and along with his manager; Florenz Ziegfield was the subject of the Oscar winning 1936 film ‘The Great Ziegfield’ which told the story of modern day body building. Sandow developed the first body building machinery using dumbbells, spring pulleys & tension bands, and set up business selling his weight training equipment.

Sandow also helped organise one of the first body building contests which took place at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1901. In 1904 the first contest in America took place at Madison Square New York, and the winner Al Treloar was said to be ‘the most perfectly developed man in the world’. The popularity of body building carried on with regular contests such as Mr Olympia.

The Amateur Athletic Union established Mr America in 1939, and although the contest was meant to be about demonstrating athletic skills, it was suggested that the participants had more chance of winning, if they had specifically trained to improve their physique and this further increased the popularity of body building. With this rise in popularity the quality of the contestant’s physique’s also needed to improve, and so the use of chemical tanning to enhance the definition of muscles became a popular practise.

The International Federation of Body builders (IFBB) was established in 1946 and the popularity of body building continued. In the 1970’s the film industry started recruiting actors who were particularly muscular, and celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger promoted body building further. The growth of the body building industry with more and more emphasis on aesthetics, demanded a more extreme approach to physical development, and so the use of anabolic steroids became widespread. As the expectations of body builders have increased this trend has continued, and it has been reported that many body builders take different types of steroids at the same time (known as stacking), and the use of insulin and growth hormones has also become commonplace.

So why do people body build?
The main method of building muscles is of course weight lifting, and as with any exercise there are health benefits. Weight lifting can help lower cholesterol, raise your metabolic rate, improve your posture, and release feel good endorphins which help combat depression. Building a little extra muscle can actually reduce the likelihood of injury, as strong muscles, tendons, and ligaments can withhold more stress. Weightlifting can also help offset some of the degeneration associated with aging such as; building up muscle mass which we can lose as we grow older. Weight bearing activity can also increase bone density and can help prevent osteoporosis (brittle bones).

Unlike weight lifting, which may be taken up by people wanting to become fitter and healthier, body building is completely concerned with body image. The thrill and the prestige of competing may influence many people to take up the pastime. However many people who take up body building do so because they don’t like their body’s appearance, and underlying a negative body image is often insecurity and low self esteem. Body building offers a chance to transform their bodies, and comments on progress can make them more determined to carry on. Searching through body building websites, gaining confidence, and getting more attention from the opposite sex were often cited as being reasons why people got into bodybuilding. Similar to people trying to lose weight reading diet magazines, body builders are constantly subjected to images of ‘strong muscular and impressive physiques’, which is quite likely to increase the pressure on them to transform their bodies.

Body builders are often perfectionists, and while they may feel they can not control areas of their life such as work and personal relationships, their body shape is something they can control. They can control how hard they train and what they eat, and often feel a sense of accomplishment by being able to achieve and maintain the muscular body. However it could be argued instead of a perceived mastery of their body shape, they actually become slaves to the discipline, and the regulation of these bodies.

The addictive nature of Body building
It is suggested that body builders are particularly vulnerable to becoming addicted to training. They may be spurred on at first by people making positive comments about their physiques; however the upkeep of their muscular bodies requires a lot of work. Many body builders report that their obsession with building muscles can affect their lives completely, from not spending time with their families, to missing work, through to completely planning and controlling what they eat. An obsession with body building can often lead to overtraining. Training too frequently and not allowing adequate recovery from intensive exercise, can wear your body down and cause long term physical problems such as painful joints in later life. So inevitably spending too long pumping iron, as opposed to helping someone become fitter and healthier, can actually lead to an increased risk of injuries.

Worrying obsessively about their appearance and undertaking excessive exercise could also be a sign that someone is suffering from ‘muscle dsymorphia’, which is an under-recognised type of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). People with muscle dsymorphia or ‘bigorexia’ as it’s become unofficially known, suffer from a form of ‘reverse anorexia’ where they believe their muscles are smaller than they actually are and train harder to increase their size. Similarly women who may have BDD, can develop an obsession with toning up any areas of their bodies that they feel look fat or flabby, even if they are actually lean and muscular. Whatever form of body dysmorphic disorder a person may suffer from they are quite likely to do whatever they can to achieve their ‘perfect body’, and are generally not concerned about any risks involved, such as the risks of taking steroids or human growth hormone.

When obsession goes too far. Drug use in body building
Anabolic steroids are a group of compounds which produce effects similar to that of the male sex hormone testosterone (anabolic means ‘building body tissue’). They help the body convert protein to muscle, and body builders claim they also enable them to train harder and can help them recover from strenuous exercise faster. Although they are only available on prescription steroid tablets or liquid (suitable for injecting) are very easily available to buy. Steroid use has escalated, and it’s suggested that boys as young as 12 are taking them to build muscles and get girls. It is estimated around one in ten gym users take steroids, and it is reported that the majority of people using needle exchange schemes are now sports men and women. There is also a rise of women taking a range of steroids which are promoted as effective fat burners, turning fat into lean tissue.

There are many ways that people take steroids: ‘Cycling’ involves stopping and starting taking multiple doses of steroids over a specific period of time. ‘Stacking’ as mentioned above involves taking two or more different types of steroids, as they believe they interact with each other to produce an effect greater than taking them individually. ‘Pyramiding’ is when the dosage and frequency of taking steroids are increased to reach a peak and then slowly reduced again, often followed by a drug free period. The idea behind pyramiding is that increasing the amount slowly allows the body to adjust to high doses, and drug free periods allow for recuperation.

There are many side effects of taking anabolic steroids many of which are not reversible. They can affect a person’s mood, make them more irritable, aggressive and it has been reported that steroid users can also become quite paranoid, and suffer from extreme jealousy. Physical side effects can include high blood pressure, a reduction in good cholesterol, fluid retention and oedema. It is also suggested steroid use increases the risks of developing cancer, heart and liver disease, and atherosclerosis. Further risks for men include; erectile dysfunction even though their sex drive may be increased, a reduced sperm count, baldness and the shrinking of their testicles.

The trend in adolescents taking steroids is very worrying, as they are at risk of suffering irreversible side effects such as accelerated puberty changes and stunted growth. The effect on women of taking a substance closely related to testosterone (a male hormone) can include them experiencing a deepened voice, excessive body and facial hair, acne, disruption of the menstrual cycle, permanent enlargement of the clitoris, and infertility.

Stimulants cover a range of substances from caffeine in coffee to ephedrine and amphetamines, and they typically used to increase energy, alertness and boost athletic performance. They can also reduce fatigue and suppress appetite. As stimulants provide short lived energy the body inevitably pays for this later, and the short term effects of stimulant use can be irritability, anxiety, and paranoia. Long term use or higher doses can have more worrying effects on the body including; convulsions, brain haemorrhages, hallucinations and heart problems such as palpitations, and rhythm abnormalities. There is also a real danger of death from overdosing.

Synthetic Human Growth Hormone (HGH) was created to mimic the effects of naturally occurring hormones produced by the pituitary glands, which stimulates growth and cell formation. It is used for treating a range of rare conditions, such as dwarfism in children or for people with an HIV/AIDS-related wasting disease. However it has also become a popular drug of choice for body builders. These hormones naturally produced by the body are responsible for normal growth in children and teenagers and can regulate the metabolic process, as people get older the levels of these hormones decrease and this can result in an increase of fat storage. The appeal of HGH is therefore quite understandable, as the use of HGH intends to stop the changes that are associated with aging. It is reported by body builders that injections of the HGH can increase lean muscle, and increase strength. It is also used to help speed up recovery from injuries. There is however no evidence that this is true. Side effects from taking HGH include swelling in the arms and legs, arthritic type symptoms, muscle pain, hardening of arteries and high blood pressure.

Insulin which is normally given to diabetics to help control blood sugar levels, is being injected by body builders as it can boost their muscle mass. Unlike steroids it is virtually undetectable so it is a popular choice for body builders who compete. Using insulin if you are not diabetic could lead to a dangerous drop in blood sugar levels which could lead to coma or even death. Using insulin in the long term can cause irreversible damage. As the body’s natural mechanism to produce insulin is compromised it is likely to stop working so that the user may actually end up becoming diabetic themselves.

Drug taking is definitely very much part of the body building culture. What is worrying is that while researching the drugs commonly used by body builders for this article (of which the ones mentioned above are only a few), is that the searches consistently came up with body building websites, and sites selling supplements for sport. Upon visiting body building sites, visitors are bombarded with advertisements selling various performance enhancing products. The extent of some body builder’s willingness to try drugs in order to achieve the ‘perfect’ physique, without thinking too much about the consequences, is something Lee Sweeney a geneticist from the University of Pennsylvania found out. He had to stop answering the phone to sports men and women begging him to be his first human guinea pig, after they read about his experiments creating ‘Schwarzenegger mice’. Sweeney had been trying to find a remedy for people with muscle wasting diseases, and managed to isolate a gene responsible for manufacturing a type of protein which he administered to the mice. The results were dramatic as the mice developed biceps and thighs twice as strong as normal mice.

Natural body building
The good news is there are people who are taking a stand and choosing not to take drugs to help them workout and build muscles. Organisations such as the British Natural Bodybuilding Federation, and the Association of Natural Body Building, promote body building without the use of drugs. The natural movement may be becoming more popular as people are increasingly finding the freaky body shapes that body builders who use drugs can develop, distasteful. Many body builders are also deciding they don’t want to put their health at risk by taking drugs. However natural body building may not always be an easy option for body builders, especially if they want to compete, as they are unlikely to be able to compete with body builders using drugs who are bigger and more muscular. The temptation to take drugs will always be there, as they find it takes a lot more hard work and patience to reach their goals, and that they are unlikely to achieve the same results as body builders who do use drugs. Whether body builders take drugs or not the drive for physical perfection is still there, and while natural body building is healthier, it could be argued that to achieve the physiques they want without drugs, body builders have to train much harder, and take more control of what they eat.

In conclusion
What is very clear is that body building by its very nature signifies difference; body builders want people to notice their muscular physiques, and in order to do this they need to be somewhat obsessive. Low self esteem and insecurities are often reasons people become immersed in the body building culture, as they can build up their muscles and receive positive comments on how they are looking. The body building culture can be a very destructive pastime and definitely has its ‘dark side’ including: drug taking, body image issues such as body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and obsessive exercising. Drug taking and obsessive exercising can be, and is, a factor in many other sporting activities; however anyone who wants to achieve competitive success in body building has little choice but to go to extremes. I think I may just stick to my swimming.