It’s normal to worry about your children playing on your mind. Over time many of them fade away or become obsolete, but every now and then they crystallize into a deep-seated fear, and that’s what happened to me when I read your article about young men “looksmaxxing” (From Bone Breaks to Chin Extensions : how ‘looksmaxxing’ is being reshaped on the faces of young men, February 15).
My 13 year old son had been bugging me for a while to buy him weights and go to the gym. I said that kids his age were too young to lift weights because their bodies were still growing. Recently a friend told me that she was able to add her twelve-year-old son to her membership. I’ve been wanting to go back to the gym for a long time and thinking this would get him off his phone, I signed us both up.
The instructor was clear that my son could not use the free weights or resistance equipment, but he could use the cardio and basic strength equipment. After a few sessions of hanging out together, I left him to go do a yoga class. When we met, he was “pumped.” Sweating hard, dancing around, excited about how hard he had trained. He pulled up his sleeve and showed me his “muscle”. In the car he planned how often we would go and what he would do. I told myself this was a kid who was excited about a new hobby, but when he started talking about “leg days” and “arm days” and “getting quenched”, I realized he was getting information from somewhere – maybe from school, maybe from the Internet.
I suggested that he should take it easy, and that he is perfect just the way he is. And this was the moment when I really started to worry. He started to cry. Furious. ‘You don’t understand what it’s like to be me. I’ve always felt fat (he hasn’t). I get bullied because of my jawline. I thought you would be proud of me. Now I feel bad about myself.”
By working with the school and gym, and with sensitive interactions, I believe we can combat this developing perversion of my child’s mind. But I recognize many of his behaviors in those that Esther Ghey generously shared about her daughter Brianna, and I’m sure other parents do too. And we share her fear of the damage being done to a generation of children whose minds are being shaped by pernicious and wholly inexplicable forces, and now it seems their bodies are being shaped as well.
Name and address provided
Reading this article is so concerning. The pressure to conform to a created ideal of beauty harkens back to some of the great science fiction stories, such as those of Iain M Banks in his Culture novels, as well as Twilight Zone episodes such as Eye of the Beholder, in which a temporarily blind woman wait for her bandage to be removed. The twist is that she is beautiful, but lives in a world of horrible people with faces like pigs, so she is seen as ugly.
I work with NHS surgeons as a biological scientist and have seen many operations. The long-term damage and scarring from certain cosmetic procedures can be serious, especially with Botox, which works by paralyzing the facial muscles. I believe that poor mental health is strongly linked to this phenomenon. A future world where people beg themselves to look like dolls. Science fiction? Or not.
Julie Taylor
Leeds
