Beef Cake Blues

At only four inches long, it told worlds about the modern male body. And I will never forget the first time I stood, dismayed and deflated, cradling a new beefed-up model of the Han Solo Star Wars action figure in my hands.

My siblings and I spent much of our childhood playing with an army of the original Kenner Toy Company creations throughout the '70s and '80s. Now less than 20 years later, their contemporary counterparts line toy store shelves in honor of the re-release of the legendary trilogy and new Phantom Menace series, and they are barely recognizable.

With their bulging plastic pectorals, massive shoulders and beefcake thighs, both Han and Luke Skywalker seem to have spent the '90s popping steroids and pumping iron in some intergalactic weight room. And with a trainer who looked nothing like Yoda.

According to a trio of mental-healthcare professionals, these miniature models of masculinity are only one symptom of a massive body-image nightmare building among modern males. Dr. Harrison Pope Jr., Dr. Katharine Phillips and Roberto Olivardia, authors of the new book The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsession aim to break the silence around what they say is a hidden health catastrophe afflicting millions of American men.

Pope, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital, says that plastic action figures actually helped inspire the book, which captured a cover spot on TIME Magazine before being released this May.

"My 14-year-old daughter was on the computer one night, and I asked what she was doing. She said she was doing her Barbie project," Pope says, launching into what Barbie's measurements would be were she a real woman. Poor Barbie, who boasts an impossible waistline, has grown even thinner over the years, and his teen set out to study how the doll is molding body image among women.

He adds, "So it occurred to me that there must be a male equivalent."

After Pope's daughter finished her research, he scanned the Internet and found thousands of webpages hosting a culture of G.I. Joe collectors. He found that the original Joe, the land-adventurer model introduced in 1964, sports measurements similar to an average male in good shape -- if he were just under six feet tall, he would have a 32-inch waist, a 44-inch chest and 12-inch biceps. Yet the recent G.I. Joe Extreme muscled his way into the toy scene a few years back with a bulging body that, if full-sized, would be impossible to achieve without steroids, featuring 27-inch biceps nearly as big as his waist.

G.I. Joe may be the most famous and longest-running action toy, but he is only part of America's yearly $1 billion market in male action toys. After becoming an avid action toy collector, Pope discovered they have all been buffing up over the years.

Feminist theorists devote entire theses and books to expounding on the effects on growing girls of trying to fit into Barbie's arch-breaking shoes, but the Adonis Complex authors argue that hardly anybody is exploring G.I. Joe and the beefing up of the American male. They say the secrecy around male body-image woes and their symptoms, including excessive workouts, steroid abuse, eating disorders and distorted body perception known as "bigorexia nervosa," has only made things worse for guys.

"There's a widespread crisis among today's boys and men -- a crisis that few people have noticed. Men of all ages, in unprecedented numbers, are preoccupied with the appearance of their bodies," the book begins. "They almost never talk openly about this problem, because in our society, men have been taught that they aren't supposed to be hung up on how they look. But beneath the tranquil surface, we see signs of this crisis everywhere."

Obsession, for Men

Most women who know Josh describe him as a walking poster child for the tall, dark and handsome. He has a gym membership, but with his demanding work schedule and active social life he doesn't get to work out as much as he thinks he should. But after a recent trip to the flea market on an especially hot, sticky day, the 31-year-old says he realized just how badly he needs to get in shape.