Real men discuss cosmetic surgery and the pressure fitness influencers have on their body image.
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00:00How frequently do you see fitness accounts on social media and do you follow any?
00:09I'd say I've seen them very frequently, I'd say probably on Instagram once a day,
00:15twice a day and yeah quite frequently I see them on Instagram. I do follow a few of the
00:22quite large accounts, a guy called Joe Faser, I follow him, he's quite a big name,
00:27growing recently, so I'd follow them, they are obviously very muscular but a lot of times you
00:35follow them and they can give you good advice and tips on things so as much as I'm a long way off
00:41their physique it can be useful nutritional and gym advice which is why I'd follow them,
00:46I quite like seeing their content. I see fitness accounts quite a lot,
00:50you see them on TikTok coming up on your 4U page, I do follow a few because I like going to the gym
00:55and stuff but yeah it's mainly like you see like Samsung and people like that on your 4U page,
01:01big muscular people and they just try and get you into the fitness industry and they also try
01:07and sell their products alongside of it as well. What are your thoughts then on the relationship
01:12between the fitness industry and cosmetic surgery for young men? I think that the fitness industry
01:18especially with the growth of social media has grown and become much more popular in even the
01:23last five years and I think that it can give people a sort of false expectation and unrealistic
01:35expectations that they're striving towards in the gym and everything but it's quite unachievable
01:40for most people so they instead of accepting that they can turn to cosmetic surgery instead,
01:47thinking that they need to look a certain way when in actual fact they should just accept who
01:54they are and what they look like. Probably heard brief things about it, just probably people like
02:00I said before trying to achieve a physique or appearance that isn't realistic, not a realistic
02:08expectation. If you want to look a certain way then obviously do the thing you have to do to
02:14achieve that but I think there's a lot of pressure on particularly young men to look a certain way
02:19because they see all these influencers and think oh I've got to be jacked into massive muscles when in
02:25reality that's not realistic for everyone. Do you think then that there's a stigma around young men
02:30getting cosmetic surgery especially within the fitness industry but just young men in general?
02:35I'd say there definitely is a stigma, it's probably much more common and accepted within society for
02:43women to get cosmetic surgery and certain things that affect their appearance whereas men, far less
02:50common. I think definitely a stigma within the fitness industry yeah especially for men because
02:56just because it's far less common for them but they've got these unachievable physiques really
03:04popular or seen them all over social media and Instagram whatever so they sort of think it's
03:10the only option to get cosmetic surgery but that's probably where the stigma lies.
03:14There's some stigma to look like to be jacked and everything in the fitness industry so I think that forces people to go and inject themselves or look a certain way because obviously you see it on Instagram, you see people look and then they get idolised by other people and I think people want to just have that attention and be idyllic to everyone but I agree to the fact that like
03:40you can be who you are, you can look how you are but I don't think there should be a stigma or like you shouldn't have to look a certain way to be appreciated by people.
03:48Do you think cosmetic surgery is going to become more common among young men within the fitness industry?
03:53I think definitely if you look at the growth of the fitness industry in the last
03:575-10 years in recent times it's growing massively online the popularity which means it's reaching a
04:04much wider audience so I can definitely see the cosmetic surgery rates whatever people are using
04:13that increase because of more and more people are seeing these unrealistic expectations and
04:21probably being too harsh on themselves and saying instead of accepting what they look like
04:26they're just saying I need to look like that and turn into cosmetic surgery instead of acceptance.
04:32I think it's definitely going to become more prevalent because obviously there's new treatments
04:38and new ways to do it and easier ways to do it to make it look less obvious but then not at the
04:43same time so I think more people will be attracted to it and as more people obviously it wasn't a big
04:48thing 10 years ago now it's you see it all the time so I think that is why people are more and
04:52more coming onto the trend of looking this way and looking like that bodybuilder s-type because
04:59it's a lot easier to achieve than it was 20 years ago.