Body-positivity isn’t just something women struggle with, it also affects men. Obviously women most feel the pinch of narrow beauty standards but more and more, men and boys are suffering too.
A quarter of Australian men who fall inside a healthy weight range think they’re fat, a statistic mirrored by the quarter of young men who last year rated “body image” as one of their major concerns.
Fad diets, eating disorders, and steroid abuse are all on the rise and until we do something about an industry now thriving on making men hate themselves, it’s only going to get worse.
Yes, body image is a female problem but it’s not just a female problem. In the same way women benefit from seeing other women who actually look like them, so do men.
Hardly any major clothing brands make plus-sized menswear and those that do barely advertise them. The plus-sized market for men is estimated to be a $17.5 billion a year industry, so wear are all the plus-sized male models?
Well, we found a couple, as well as a few other trailblazer’s of the men’s body positivity movement…
1. Zach Miko.
Zach Miko is the first plus-sized male model ever signed to a major agency. At 6ft 6in with 40in waist, he started out modelling for target but now works for IMG, the agency that looks after models like Freja Beha and Gigi Hadid.
Plus-sized model Zach Miko. Source: Instagram
"There has been a lot of support in women’s modelling -- models such as Ashley Graham and Tess Holliday have been making huge waves," he told the Guardian in a recent interview.
