Details found a “new trend” (always be scared of those words) that you should be scared about: gym addicts!
Look out for other tell-tale signs of obvious scare tactics. “Growing number” and “it seems.”
[A] growing number of guys, it seems, think that missing one day of exercise, or even cutting short a workout, will suddenly make them frail or—far worse—fat. Among their ranks is the guy who can’t sleep nights because he’s too amped-up about the training he’s going to do at 5 a.m. If his trip to the gym isn’t up to snuff, he’ll log another in the evening, making excuses to blow off work or a date. And then there’s the guy who feels compelled to ride the stationary bike until he has burned off every last calorie from lunch (“You’re paying the price for that slice of pizza,” he tells himself). And if these workout junkies can’t exercise—if they spend a mere 24 hours away from the weight room—they plunge headlong into depression.
A growing number of magazines, it seems, are hoping to desperately capitalize on their readerships’ complete naivety in recognizing trend frauds. Is compulsive exercise a problem, and a symptom of deeper mental issues like body dysmorphic disorder? Probably! Is it something that we need to start warning America about? No — the last thing we need is to fear exercise.
soakman
Wow, sounds like 2 of my exes. They seldom blew me off, but the mood swings are no news to me. It’s like they become addicted to endorphins or something, and they go into withdrawal.
Mike
With the obesity epidemic in the US, I think it is safe to say that gym ‘addiction’ does not affect more than a handful of people.
Alexander
This isn’t really news. It’s called “bigorexia” and is recognized by most doctors as a disorder akin to anorexia. Alternatively, this could be a manifestation of body dysmorphic disorder. In any case, it is a medical condition and often require treatment.
Wait ...
So you’re objecting to *some other outlet* ridiculously trying to gin a story out of nothing at all, complete with painful rhetorical tells? Heh.
David
The mafia must have broken all of the Situation’s fingers at some point. They’re all jacked.
Ryan C
@Alexander: It is also known as muscle dysmorphia, for those who may have heard it by another term.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
@David: Good catch….Thats one set o’ ugly ass paws……….
Cam
I thought that posing in every picture making fake gang signs with your fingers went out of style when Samantha Ronson started doing it. I guess the news is taking a while to reach Jersey.
DR
It’s easy to attack the symptom, how about getting to the cause?
Maybe, just maybe, if we weren’t constantly having a specific body image rammed down our throats by popular American culture, we wouldn’t need to have this discussion?
I’m not suggesting that we say “obesity is great, here’s a double cheeseburger” by any stretch of the imagination. But this insistence that you only have worth if your body fat percentage is below 10% is utterly ridiculous. There has to be a happy medium defining what is “in shape” or “fit”, otherwise we end up at the extreme end of the spectrum.
Phil
That would be fifteen percent.
scott ny'er
phew. Finally, I now have a diagnosis. It was screwing me up not knowing. Thanks Queerty.