Jonah Hill’s body image message is causing waves.
The actor recently shared on Instagram a heartfelt message about his struggle to accept himself after the British tabloid Daily Mail posted paparazzi photos of the 37-year-old surfer.
“I don’t think I ever took my shirt off in the pool until I was in my early 30s, even in front of family and friends,” admitted Hill. “It probably would have happened earlier if my childhood insecurities were not exacerbated by years of public mockery about my body by the press and interviewers. So the idea that the media tries to play me chasing me while surfing and prints pictures like this and can scare me more is a drug. “
THE Very bad star concluded: “I am 37 years old and I finally love and accept myself. This is not a ‘good for me’ post. And it is definitely not a ‘I feel bad for me’ post. . Have fun. You are wonderful, incredible and perfect. All my love. “
Hill’s post resonated with his fans – more than 40,000 of them left comments on the post, including Judd Apatow, Justin Timberlake, Rashida Jones, Ava Duvernay and many others. Rapper Lil ‘Dicky even shared: “I have a lot of acne on my body and I stopped caring just last year”
Hill’s body has been a media plot since he started appearing in movies and TV shows in the early 2000s, when he was a teenager. Hill, whose weight has fluctuated throughout his career and time in the public eye, has opened up about his weight in the past.
“I became famous in my late teens and then spent most of my young adult life listening to people say I was fat, disgusting and unattractive,” he said during a 2018 appearance on The Ellen Show. “And it was only in the last four years writing and directing my film, ‘Mid 90’, that I started to understand how much it hurt and got into my head.” He continued, “I really believe that everyone has an image of themselves from a time when they were young that they are ashamed of. For me, he is that overweight and unattractive 14 year old boy who felt ugly to the world, who listened to hip-hop and who wanted so much to be accepted by this skateboarding community. “
Hill’s experience is quite common and highlights the fact that men are forced to struggle internally with the way they exist in their own bodies. According to the Prevention of Obesity and Eating Disorders in Adolescents, a research study released in 2016, up to “37 percent of overweight boys are caused by their peers or family members”, which can lead to “weight gain, binge eating and extreme weight control measures” .
Associations with negative body image are usually with women, and often for good reason, as girls are unfairly defined by narrow and unrealistic beauty standards from an early age, in addition to being implicitly taught that all their value comes from the way you look.
But, unfortunately, the notion that body image problems still exist for men is often underestimated or totally rejected – despite statistics suggesting that male body image problems are incredibly common, with almost half of men admitting body dissatisfaction and research showing that men suffer from body dysmorphia in the same proportion as women, which can lead to low self-esteem, psychological suffering or even eating disorders.
Eating disorders are not normally associated with men, but according to the National Eating Disorder Association, the figures indicate that “one in three people struggling with an eating disorder is male” and that “subclinical eating disorder behaviors” , which include binge eating, purging, laxative abuse and fasting for weight loss are almost as common among men as they are among women.
Virgie Tovar, one of the country’s leading experts and speakers on fat discrimination and body image, puts everything in context, explaining that men tend to keep these issues to themselves, as they “feel ashamed or worry” about the idea of opening up about your problems.
“I think a lot of the silence comes down to toxic masculinity,” Tovar told Yahoo Lifestyle. “At the end of the day, we all need to recognize that having a negative body image is a highly likely outcome in our culture, regardless of gender.”
Hopefully, seeing someone like Hill open up about his own struggles with his body can encourage other men to talk about their own journeys toward self-acceptance. Otherwise, men may be forced to continue to suffer in silence. Sarah McMahon, a psychologist and director of the BodyMatters Australasia eating disorder clinic, says men tend to keep these problems to themselves, despite the numbers that indicate an increase in body image problems among men.
“One of the biggest differences between concerns about body image in men and women is the fact that men generally don’t discuss it,” says McMahon.
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