The pursuit of muscularity among adolescent boys has received increasing attention since 1990s as the male body has become more visible in popular culture. Although psychologists have largely focused on this topic (Cafri et al., 2005; Harvey & Robinson, 2003; Labre, 2002; Ricciardelli & McCabe, 2004), currently physical education scholars are examining the role of muscularity in male students’ interest in muscularity. Many adolescent boys report dissatisfaction with their muscle size, height, strength, shoulders, biceps, and chests (McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2001). However, there is less work on ethnic differences in boys’ perceptions of body image. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which eighth grade boys’ ethnicities influenced their drives for muscularity.
Method:
The Drive for Muscularity Scale (DMS, McCreary and Sasse, 2000) was used to examine eighth grade adolescent males’ muscularity in body image. The DMS was developed as a 14-item, self-report measure of adolescent males’ current perceptions of their muscularity, and their future aspirations for muscularity. The DMS also examines the strategies and behaviors males use currently or plan to engage in to become more muscular (McCreary, 2007). The male-specific muscularity 6-point Likert scale (1= Always to 6= Never) featured drawings of men’s varying degrees of muscularity. For this research, 3 eighth grade male students in two middle schools (White= 10, Black= 9, Hispanic= 9, & Others= 8) in a southeastern region in the United States completed the DMS. Frequency analysis and one-way ANOVA were used to examine the extent to which boys’ ethnicities influenced their drives for muscularity.
Analysis/Results:
Frequency analysis indicated that the findings of this study were consistent with the previous studies. Specifically, about one third of adolescent boys desired a larger and more muscular body build, whereas another third desired a thinner body size (Ricciardelli & McCabe, 2003, 2007). In addition, ANOVA results showed there were no statistically significant differences (p= .837) between adolescent boys’ ethnicity and the DMS scores.
Conclusions:
Although there is general agreement that African-American men report higher levels of body-image satisfaction than White men, in this study there were no differences among adolescent boys’ desire for muscularity based on ethnicity.