Tag: Life and style

Is veganism as are you all right as “theyre saying”?

We need more research on the diet, say scientists

Katharina Wirnitzer was in the midst of training for the Bike Transalp race, one of the world’s toughest endurance events, when she began investigating whether a vegan diet was suitable for athletes.

The year was 2003 and veganism was a long way from the current boom, which has established it as one of the most in-vogue dietary trends. But Wirnitzer, a athletics scientist at the University of Innsbruck, had become intrigued by the resurgence of ancient hypothesis linking plant-based diets with improved athletic performance.

” The first athletes on strict plant-based diets were gladiators ,” she says.” Roman scripts report that all fighters adhered to gladiatoriam saginam , which was based on plant foods, including large amounts of legumes, heartbeats and grains, and contained little or no animal protein .”

Now, virtually two millennia later, Wirnitzer is one of a handful of researchers trying to get to the bottom of whether veganism couldenhance an athlete’s chances of sporting success. Over the past decade, she has led the NURMI study, the broadest initiative so far investigating the effects of a vegan diet in high-performance, ultra-endurance sports.

NURMI is particularly timely because veganism’s association with various health benefits- from weight loss to decreased risk of inflammatory cancer- has considered the diet rise in popularity in recent years, both amongst the general public and elite sportsmen. The most recent survey by the Vegan Society estimates that there are around 600,000 vegans in the UK– a fourfold increase over the past five years- while high-profile athletes from Lewis Hamilton to Jermain Defoe have begun experimenting with veganism.

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Kendrick James Farris, the United States’ sole male weightlifter at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Being vegan is’ almost like having superpowers ‘, he told Ebony magazine. Photograph: Mike Ehrmann/ Getty Images

However, despite the boom in veganism, even the most optimistic scientists caution that there is still much we do not understand about the diet. In particular, little is known about the long-term consequences of veganism and whether it does hold significant advantages over an omnivorous or vegetarian diet.

Portrayals of the diet can be partisan: the recent blockbuster Netflix documentary The Game Changers has since been tainted by revelations that the executive producers are cofounders of a vegan food company and that much of the evidence presented in the film is selective, low-quality and anecdotal. Moreover, as with so many dietary interventions, the search for the truth about veganism is often clouded by the potential fiscal gains- with predictions that the global vegan food market will be worth $24.3 bn by 2026.

This is perhaps unsurprising. Whether it be the trendy city bars offering vegan wine, or the array of new products launching in supermarkets and health food stores, veganism is the wellness industry’s new cash cow. Market-research experts have already predicted that the value of the global vegan food market will reach $ 24.3 bn by 2026. Vegan cheese alone is expected to develop into an industry worth virtually$ 4bn within the next five years.

So what do we really know about veganism and what it can do for our health?

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Venus Williams credits turning vegan with helping her to relieve the symptoms of the autoimmune disease Sjogren’s disorder. Photograph: VCG/ Getty Images

The quest to reduce cardiovascular disease

At Sheffield Hallam University, David Rogerson has spent the past decade studying the effects of dietary interventions on physical health. He says that one reason veganism could be good for you is because it can protect against cardiosvascular diseases, by reducing obesity and lowering cholesterol. These chronic illnesses expense the UK around PS9bn a year; veganism may be the solution.

” There’s growing evidence that reduced consumption of animal products, coupled with an increase in plant-based foods, seems to be good for our health ,” says Rogerson.” This is perhaps due to these foods containing plenty of antioxidant phytonutrients and nitrates, while some animal products contain lots of pro-inflammatory fats and lead to the production of a metabolite called TMAO, which has been linked to cardiovascular problems .”

The anti-inflammatory effect of plant-based foods is thought to be the reason why vegan diets appear to relieve symptoms of some auto-immune illness such as rheumatoid arthritis. The tennis player Venus Williams, who suffers from Sjogren’s syndrome, credits turning vegan with mitigating the extreme fatigue associated with the condition, and with enabling her to continue vying at the highest level.

The full picture is rather more complex than it first seems. Scientists have found that a combined group of vegetarians and vegans appeared to have a higher risk of haemorrhagic stroke than did meat-eaters. But owing to the small number of vegans in the study, it is hard to draw firm conclusions.” Possible reasons might be related to lower cholesterol levels or a inadequacy of some nutrients, such as vitamin B12 ,” says Tammy Tong, a researcher in the University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Population Health.” Vegans are also at a higher risk of B12-deficiency, since the nutrient is only naturally available from animal foods. Low B1 2 levels may be linked to raised blood levels of homocysteine, which may be linked to higher risk of stroke .”

While vegan lobby groups have claimed that the diet outcomes in a healthier intestine microbiome and reduces the risk of some cancers, compared to meat-based diets, experts say there is little concrete evidence to back this up.” There was one US study which looked at all gastrointestinal-tract cancers blended and discovered no difference in vegans compared with non-vegetarians ,” says Tong.” Two studies have looked at colorectal cancer hazard in vegans and both reported no significant difference compared to non-vegans .”

The reason we still know relatively little is because while the word “vegan” was coined in 1962, for a long time scientific studies classed vegans and vegetarians together. But with increasing quantities of sports-science funding going into studying veganism, it may actually be through athletes, and their endless quest for” faster, higher, stronger”, that we learn most about the diet in the years to come.

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The Australian 400 m and 800 m Olympic runner Morgan Mitchell claims that her vegan diet assistances her recovery, weight and immune system. Photograph: Jason McCawley/ Getty Images

High hopes but little proof

The NURMI study follows 8,000 runners from across Europe, including meat eaters, vegans and vegetarians and aims to see whether following a vegan diet over period leads to greater endurance over the half-marathon and marathon distances. In the next few years, NURMI will publish one of the first analyses of how vegan athletes compare to their meat-eating equivalents and, according to Wirnitzer, we are still in the infancy of understanding how our nutritional uptake can boost athletic ability.

” There is huge potential that is still untapped, both in terms of health and performance in sport competition ,” she says.

One of the above reasons athletes across such a range of sports are interested in the vegan diet is because it may boost immunity as well as aiding recovery and rehabilitation from trauma. Plant-based foods such as beetroot are known to contain dietary nitrates that aid blood-flow, and oxygen and nutrient transport through the body.

” Elite athletes are looking at all available legal options to enhance their performance ,” says Richard Brennan, managing board of Athletics Science Consultants, who is studying athletes who have been meat-eaters all their lives, and are now moving towards a vegan diet.” What we’re focusing on are the benefits to overall health which could enhance the training responses in terms of conditioning different energy systems, adapting more effectively to strength and power training programs, and having less time off sick to develop .”

These are the hopes for veganism, but scientists alert that, so far, there have been so few studies of athletes that there is very little evidence to support them. Wirnitzer published a landmark 2014 newspaper that showed that a well-planned vegan diet meets the nutritional requirements of endurance athletes, but we still know virtually nothing about whether it is the optimum diet.

Scientists have raised concerns that the diet is too restrictive for athletes who are travelling the world vying in sporting rivalries. Athletes could become malnourished, be unable to maintain muscle mass and suffer deficiencies in B12( which would lead to fatigue and poor oxygen transport ), calcium and vitamin D.

” There’s the possibility of having lower intakes of these minerals which play a role in bone health ,” says Rogerson.” There is evidence to say that vegans experience greater bone turnover and reduced bone-mineral density, so this could mean that vegans are at an increased risk of bone injury. We also know that female athletes might be at an increased risk of such traumata if they don’t feed enough, so this is potentially a double-whammy .”

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Some studies suggest the Mediterranean diet may be more beneficial than a vegan one. Photograph: Alamy

How practical is a vegan lifestyle ?

Concerns about the practicality of veganism extend to the general population. One question is whether vegans can scheme their diet well enough over many years to avoid developing inadequacies. There have been two population studies that have monitored vegans over hour, one following Seventh Day Adventists in the US and Canada, and the EPIC-Oxford study, whichtracked the health of nearly 50,000 meat-eaters, vegetarians and vegans across the UK. Scientists involved in the latter have found that while devouring veggies rich in calcium, such as kale and broccoli, can protect bones, in reality many vegans don’t actually gratify their calcium requirements. As a result, they have found a 30% increased risk of fracture in vegans compared to vegetarians and meat eaters.

” More research is still needed to understand possible differences in fracture risks and whether any differences are related to diet or other factors ,” says Tong.” For example, low BMI has also been linked to higher risks of some fractures and in some studies vegans exhibit lower BMI and bone-mineral density than do vegetarians .”

Because of these concerns, some research groups have begun comparing veganism to other diets rich in plant-based foods, which are associated with many of the same benefits, such as the Mediterranean and New Nordic diets. Earlier this year, researchers at Sheffield Hallam University conducted a pilot study comparing a Mediterranean and vegan diet over a short-term period, with intriguing outcomes. While both diets appeared to offer similar positives in terms of weight-loss and reduced cholesterol, proof was much stronger for a Mediterranean diet when it came to improving blood-vessel health.

” Our findings suggested that the Mediterranean diet improved the route that the endothelium of the small veins run ,” says Markos Klonizakis, one of the scientists who operated the study.” This might not sound important, but it is. This becomes dysfunctional over time so it is crucial for cardiovascular health. The magical of the family of Mediterranean diets is that they are tested and proved over a very long period of time, in a relatively large area of countries around the world. For example, we know that traditionally people in Crete lived long and had low rates of diabetes and cancer .”

So what next for veganism? Scientists across the board agree that we don’t yet know enough to decide conclusively one way or another, but as many point out, the success of any diet ultimately comes down to the eating habits of the individual.

” The success of a vegan diet will rest on the conscientiousness of the individual undertaking it ,” says Rogerson.” It’s restrictive and unless we pay attention to the elements of the diet that it excludes, then we might be putting ourselves at risk of developing deficiency-related problems. It has become easier to follow with vegan-friendly food products in supermarkets, which are fortified with nutrients that can be absent from the diet.

” Another phase is that people who choose to adopt a vegan diet might be more inclined to adopt health-related behaviours than the norm. Such groups might be more inclined to exert and be aware of the nutritional adequacy of the foods they eat. We need to look at this further .”

Read more: www.theguardian.com

The six-pack can wait: how to set fitness goals you will actually keep

Falling off the keep-fit wagon in February is as much a cliche as jumping on it in January here, three experts explain how to boost your chances of staying on track

Most of us have, at some phase in “peoples lives”, seemed in the mirror and decided we need a radical image overhaul- especially in January. Then, when we don’t achieve the desired six-pack within a few months, we tumble off the fitness bandwagon. But is there a way to set realistic, useful fitness goals that will maintain you motivated as the nights draw in and the prospect of an extra hour in bed trumps a workout?

First of all, think about the goals not to build- keep in mind that exercise alone won’t alter your body shape. If you are looking for major fat loss, you will have to look at diet, too.” People underestimate the amount of endeavour physical transformations take ,” says Hannah Lewin, a personal trainer. She advises clients to focus on positive fitness objectives instead- operating 5km or deadlifting 30 kg- rather than aesthetic objectives that will require drastic lifestyle overhauls.

Next, consider what is important to you.” A lot of people come to me and say:’ I want to look like this ,'” says Lewin.” That’s where a lot of aims go wrong from the outset, because you’re choosing a aim based on someone else .”

The personal trainer Ruby Tuttlebee advises starting small and building up. Something straightforward, such as a press-up, is a better bet than aiming for a triathlon right off the bat. She also suggests having a series of objectives. When you have mastered a perfect press-up, defined a new goal of five press-ups in a row, then 10, then 20.

Lewin agrees:” The first aim should be easy. In terms of a scale of how likely you are to achieve that goal, it should be a 9/10. Progress it from there .” The main reason people fail is that they focus on the thing they want to achieve and become dispirited where reference is takes longer than they expected.” Focusing on that end goal can be problematic .”

Choosing something you enjoywill help.” If you don’t like something, you won’t give 100% ,” says Tuttlebee. Training with a friend or a personal trainer can also keep you on track, when your motive slips.

Keeping score is also a good idea.” When I set objectives with athletes, I look at three types of goal ,” says the chartered sports psychologist Helen Davis. Outcome goals are big-ticket accomplishments, such as running a marathon. A performance goal sits below that and helps you assess whether you are on your way to your outcome aim. Progress goals are day-to-day activities, such as training three times a week or optimising your nutrition.” Monitoring these goals gives people tangible things they can work on and helps direct their focus to keep them on track day to day ,” Davis says.

Always reward yourself for achieving your goals, however small.” Even if just walking through the door of your gym is your first goal, you’ve achieved it- so well done ,” says Tuttlebee. Above all, remember that your goals are yours alone, she says.” Make it your own. Tailor it to you .”

Read more: www.theguardian.com

Why beating your phone craving may come at a cost

Some worry the wellness motion and its focus on personal responsibility let the tech industry off the hook

At 9.30 am on a Wednesday morning, I received a notification telling me I’d already picked up my phone 30 hours the working day.” 11 left until you go over your goal of 41 pickups ,” my screen read.” Put your telephone down until 9.52 am! Enjoy your time living in the moment .”

These updates were sent via Moment, an app that tracks my screen time.

Moment was created by Kevin Holesh in 2014 to combat his own device addiction. He was working as an independent app developer, spending hours each day staring at screens. After run, Holesh found that he was scrolling mindlessly through Twitter instead of talking to his wife or taking his puppies for a walk.

” I wanted a way of watching how much period I was sinking into my phone ,” he told me.” So I hacked something together that could monitor my screen time .”

Holesh found that he was spending 75 minutes on his telephone a day. He added a feature to the app that notified him whenever his screen time exceeded 40 minutes.” My phone would buzz, and I’d go and do something else ,” he said.” It was like a little angel on my shoulder nudging me in the right direction .”

Holesh figured that if the system worked for him, it would work for others, and later that year he released Moment as a free app. To date, it has been downloaded 8m times.

As well as tracking device use, Moment now has a ” coach-and-four ” function, which offers guided programs to help users focus and be more productive, for $7.99 a month.

I signed up for a week-long course called Bored and Brilliant that was supposed to help me regain ingenuity, but after five days I had attained little progress. By 10.30 am on Wednesday morning I received another notification informing me I had gone over my 41 allotted pickups.

Yet, Moment is popular, and many online reviews are positive.” I am so much happier, I sleep better, I read more, I take better care of myself, and most of all I am present in my day-to-day life ,” one reviewer wrote, merely heightening my sense of personal failure.

Moment’s popularity reflects a growing consciousness around” digital wellness”, the name given to lifestyle practises that encourage healthy device use. Wellness tendencies reflect the nervousness of the epoch in which they start; this one is about time being stolen from us. If being on the phone 24/7, or having tech-savvy kids, was once a signifier of productivity and affluence , now device craving signifies a loss of control.

Many digital wellness volumes, programs and apps encourage commonsense behavioral alters- say, leaving your phone outside your room when you go to sleep- aimed to help people regain control of their time in a digital economy designed to drip-feed information and dopamine in return for our data and attention.

But as this burgeoning movement becomes an industry, some worry that the “wellness” approach and its emphasis on personal responsibility is whitewashing deeper structural issues within the tech industry.

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Academics have been concerned about the addictive potential of computers for decades. As early as the 1970 s, pioneering computer scientist and technological sciences critic Joseph Weizenbaum warned that people had become ” addicted” to modern technology and that there was a need for” withdrawal therapies “.

While these criticisms were often overshadowed by prevailing techno-optimism- a belief that a more connected world was a better world- the narrative began to shift at the turn of the last decade with the rise of smartphones. As we became increasingly tethered to our screens, a growing number of experts and social commentators, like Sherry Turkle and Nicholas Carr, published grave warns that we were spending too much time on them.

As trust in the tech industry has atrophied over the past few years, this critical perspective has become commonplace. Countless articles, studies and books now tell us how our screen addiction is making us more anxious and depressed, incapable of thinking deeply and too distracted to engage in meaningful relationships or self-reflection. Concerns are particularly acute in relation to young people and how it may affect their development.

Born out of this cultural nervousnes is the digital wellness movement. Unlike earlier tech criticism, which was just trying to diagnosed and raise awareness around tech craving, digital wellness aims to provide solutions , often in the form of step-by-step programs.

Science journalist Catherine Price’s bestselling book of last year, How to Break Up With Your Phone: The 30 -Day Plan to Take Your Life Back , draws on cognitive science and philosophy to show how telephones and social media platforms are designed like slot machines to entice us in. She then offers an action plan involving mindfulness strategies, like putting a rubber band around the device as a reminder to take pause before plugging back in.

Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism: Opting a Focused Life in a Noisy World examines real-life practices of Amish farmers, high-performing Silicon Valley programmers and others to identify” digital decluttering” strategies. This has earned Newport, a computer science professor at Georgetown University, the title of” Marie Kondo of technology “.

Another popular format is the guided digital detox program. Jocelyn K Glei, who hosts a productivity-related podcast called Hurry Slowly, recently launched Reset, a four-week online course aimed to help” push back against the toxic habits of technology “. Her customers receive video talks, reset rituals( including daily victory dances) and meditations to learn how to become ” empowered ” rather than ” overwhelmed “, ” appreciative” rather than ” critical” and “intentional” rather than “scatter-brained”.

Switching off, in this context, is an aspiration marketed directly at” busy people”, those for whom productivity and focus is key, but who can still ultimately afford to take time off. For the above reasons, many digital detox programs and retreats are associated with luxury.

Time To Log Off offers retreats where participants give up their smartphones, go for hikes, and talk about the pressure of being “on” 24/7. Villa Stephanie in Germany provides guests with an option to disconnect their room from the electrical grid via copper plates and signal blocking paint as part of a $570 a night “detox” package.

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For Holesh, part of the appeal of Moment is that it democratizes digital wellness by” session people where they are “. Many of the app’s newer functions- like” family mode”, which lets you monitor family screen hour- are still free, and new customers get a one-week free trial for the paid coaching programs.

But as with other successful wellness products, the apparent altruism is underpinned by a business model and a bottom line.

Last year Holesh hired Tim Kendall, a former Facebook and Pinterest executive known in Silicon Valley for taking ice baths and wearing a T-shirt that says “Focus”, to help grow the business.

Kendall , now CEO, told me that he sees the digital wellness as a growth area in the broader health and wellbeing industry, comparable to meditation apps, which in the first quarter of 2018 bought in $27 m in worldwide revenue.

At this stage, Moment produces revenue through the subscription-based coaching programs. Kendall believes that as they come to understand user behavior better, they will be able to provide more personalized programs to help people switch off more effectively.

” In the same way that Fitbit has a lot of information in aggregate that puts the company in a better position to make recommendations about how people can change behavior to be more active, we’re able to use our data across millions of users to help the customer gain control of their hour ,” he said.

Kendall assured me that Moment does not use personal information beyond improving the services offered for users. But the privacy policy on the website states that personal information can be sold to third parties and used for” direct marketing intents”, reinforcing the business model of the attention economy while offering a solution to its discontents through self-help.

A similar tactic is now also being deployed at scale by big tech companies. Merely last year Facebook and Instagram released time-management tools and an option to mute push notifications. Google announced new “wellbeing” features that help remind yourself to take a break from YouTube, restriction notificationsand clear clutter from your telephone. And Apple introduced” Screen Time”, which lets you track how much time you spend on particular apps.

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For many stalwarts of the digital wellness motion , big tech’s embracing of their ethos is seen as disingenuous.” Tech companies love the idea of digital wellness because it sets responsibility on us ,” Catherine Price told me.” It devotes them an excuse to be like tobacco companies and just say, well if you don’t like us, you don’t have to use our product .”

Price also pointed out that Apple has been making life harder for independent digital wellness developers( some have even been suspended from the App Store .)” If they were concerned with our wellbeing, why would they do this ?” she asked.” Frankly it all just seems like a PR exercise .”

Manoush Zomorodi, a journalist who has been writing about digital wellness since 2015, also questions whether companies that have become rich by designing mediated dopamine-driven feedback loops-the-loops can be part of the answer without altering their business model.

” People say, only turn off your phone, what’s the big deal? Well, we’re up against multibillion-dollar firms who know how to manipulate you ,” Zomorodi told me.” It’s not a neutral issue of me just needing to have healthier habits. What tech needs is design ethics .”

While Price and Zomorodi acknowledge these structural problems, they also believe that digital wellness practises can be useful tools.” We should be using everything at our disposal ,” Price told me.” If you want to see alter immediately you have to have the personal responsibility approach because it means we can change right now .”

Yet Jenny Odell, an artist whose book How to Do Nothingis a personal meditation on how to disconnect from the attention economy, is concerned that the digital wellness industry, with its emphasis on regaining lost period and productivity, reinforces a deeper culture problem.

” We’ve been trained to think of ourselves as marketable objects with 24 potentially monetizable hours ,” she says. Within this paradigm, the problem with addictive tech is that it is sapping us of our time that could be more productively expend capitalizing on our skills and waking hours.

” I think there has to be a distinction between having meaning in your life and being more productive ,” Odell adds.” They’re not the same thing. But they’re often being conflated by these digital detox products .”

In her volume, Odell traces how her desire for tech-mediated connection began to ease as she became interested in the birds living in her neighborhood, which then became a full-blown birdwatching hobby.” I found that infinitely more grounding than any digital detox program or app is going to be ,” she told me.” I don’t have to actively wrestle with technology. I put my phone down because I’m going for a walking and there’s something I want to look at .”

Odell acknowledges that birdwatching wouldn’t work for everyone, and that many of the step-by-step digital wellness programs can be useful in providing people relief, but questions how sustainable these solutions are.

” Instead of following a program to get back focus and productivity I made myself open to idleness ,” she says.” But the human desire for the quick fix is so deep that if you tell someone you have a number of steps with which they can remedy this really big structural and cultural problem, they will ignore the bigger picture and just take whatever they can get .”

Read more: www.theguardian.com

‘ I wanted a truncheon in my gasps ‘: the rise of the penis extension

CPR and COVID-1 9

More and more men are opting for surgical penis expansion. Is it a confidence boost, or a con?

It has been more than a year since the operation, but Alistair is still furious about the results.” I paid PS8, 000 and they mutilated me ,” he says.” It was butchery. My partner said it looked like a war meander. My erection is basically ruined .”

In July 2017, the 55 -year-old decorator, from London, became one of a growing number of British humen to have a surgical penis expansion. Talk of improvement was once the conserve of promotional spam mail for bizarre-looking pills and pumps; now, it is serious clinical business. British clinics, which have taken consultancy rooms in Harley Street and in UK cities including Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and Leeds, report record numbers of patients calling on their services. One practice, the London Centre for Aesthetic Surgery, has gone from performing a handful of penis procedures annually when it opened in 1990 to more than 250 in 2017. Between 2013 and 2017, members of the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery carried out 45,604 penis enhancements worldwide. Previous numbers are unknown; the procedure was considered such a minority concern that it wasn’t included in surveys. This increase in demand apparently caters to a growing anxiety about penis size, but it is by no means a risk-free procedure. For Alistair, dreams of a larger penis were overtaken by infections, lumps and an erection that no longer rises above a 45 -degree angle. And he is not alone. In recent years, the General Medical Council has recorded stories of” wonky penis” and erectile dysfunction following surgery. In Stockholm, last summertime, a 30 -year-old man died after suffering a cardiac arrest following an operation to enlarge his penis.

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At his Harley Street clinic, Dr Roberto Viel is explaining how a typical enlargement works. First, surgeons sever the organ’s suspensory ligament, causing it to hang an inch or two lower, giving the impression of extra duration. They then extract fat from the patient’s stomach and inject it into the penis shaft, increasing girth by around two inches. Erect, it’s worth noting, it remains roughly the same size, indicating the motives for many men are not inevitably to enhance either their- or a partner’s- sex experience.

The procedure, which can cost more than PS5, 000, lasts a little over an hour, but causes enough residual inconvenience that doctors recommend patients take a week off run. The penis remains bandaged for 10 days. Sex is off the cards for a few months. Erection suppressants are prescribed to avoid stitches being rent open.

” Operations are very safe ,” says Viel, who founded the London Centre for Aesthetic Surgery with his twin brother Maurizio.” Perhaps 95% of our patients are happy. Where they are not, it is often to do with expectations. Some men want 10 inches when nature gave them four or five. I have to say, gently,’ This is not possible. I am not a miracle worker .'”

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Photograph: Ilka& Franz for the Guardian

William O’Connor, a 38 -year-old mechanic from Northampton, is one of his fulfilled clients- and it’s easy to understand why. Think of a large can of aerosol deodorant and you have, roughly enough, his new dimensions.” There was one woman who took one look at it and simply went,’ That thing is coming nowhere near me ,'” he says.” But largely it goes down very well. I’ve seen a lot of eyes light up .”

Though generously endowed by nature and confident enough in his body to have appeared in some adult movies in his 20 s, O’Connor decided to enhance his circumference in 2013.” It was just something I imagination ,” he says with a shrug.” Some humen have hair transplantings or belly tucks. I wanted a truncheon in my gasps. My whole life I’ve enjoyed impressing girls; this was just an extension of that. You could call it a gentlemanly thing to do .”

O’Connor says he had no concerns beforehand (” My main worry was having the anaesthetic- I’m scared of needles “) and no unhappiness afterwards. The ache was manageable and there were no complications. He views the procedure as akin to working out.” I’m not preoccupied by my body- I have too many other things going on in my life ,” O’Connor says.” But I’m proud of it and I like that it’s in good shape- every part of it .”

The surgery should have no impact on fertility; O’Connor has since married and parent two children( he also has four from a previous relationship ).” I met her after the op, but she was a family friend and knew I’d had it done. I’ve never asked if it was a plus point .”

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Amr Raheem is an andrology specialist( meaning his focus is on medicine relating to men) at University College London Hospital, as well as a surgeon at International Andrology, a private clinic in the capital city. Over the past 15 years, he has carried out more than 250 expansions.” It is not possible to typical patient ,” Raheem says.” All professions, all ethnicities, married, single, lesbian, straight, rich, poor. It’s across the board. And all ages. I’ve worked on humen in their 60 s- I don’t know if they go out and use it afterwards. Early 20 s, I won’t do. These are still boys. They must get to know it before they change it .”

Patients come in all shapes and sizes:” I’ve had men who are already large enough. I had one say he wanted to be like a milk bottle. Impossible .”

If there is one unifying factor, it is a lack of confidence about what nature has provided. The average length of a British penis is, are consistent with a 2016 King’ s College London study, 5.16 in erect and 3.67 in flaccid. Merely 0. 14% of men have what one University of California study defined as a “micropenis”- that is, less than 2.5 inches when erect. Nonetheless, study after study proves displeasure remains widespread among men.

” These are the men who come to us ,” Raheem says.” They are not necessarily small, but they want to feel more confident. In front of women, yes, but in front of other humen, too, down the gym, that sort of thing .”

Many of his patients, he adds, has also already” avoided sex or situations where they would be exposed, out of embarrassment. So this constructs them happier .”

Not all operations leave happy clients- infections and scarring are both potential side-effects (” This is the same as an operation of any kind ,” Viel says ). Some humen report a decline in angle after the suspensory ligament is cut, but according to David Ralph, a professor of urology at UCL,” By and big, patients don’t complain about that. The operation doesn’t alteration the erect length at all- this is only for men who have anxiety about how they look in the changing rooms. The median increase in size is 1.3 cm, less than the diameter of a 1p coin. In my clinics, I show patients one of these and ask if they still think it is worth it. Less than 5% decide to, and of the individuals who do, the gratification rate is just 20% .”

Occasionally, the cut ligament leaves genitals lopsided when flaccid, and pointing off to the left or right when erect, as Francis Tilley, director of London clinic Androfill, explains.” Ligaments are there for a reason ,” he says.” If you start cutting at them, the stability of the penis will be reduced: the erection will be lower and less straight .” Tilley’s practise offers the operation, but its website clearly identifies it as high risk.

One Stockport-based surgeon, Ravi Kant Agarwal, was hit off( though later allowed to practise again) after botching two procedures. One of his patients, the General Medical Council hear, was left with a penis” bent like a boomerang “. Agarwal was criticised for failing to explain potential complications and misinforming patients about the possible outcome, as well as for not having anaesthetic backup during the operations.

Alistair decided to have the operation after 40 years of nervousnes.” I played Sunday football and dreaded the changing rooms ,” he says.” It’s not so much the duration as how thin and scrawny it was .”

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Photograph: Ilka& Franz for the Guardian

He married, had children and learned to live with his unease. Then, four years ago, after separating from his wife, he asked a new partner how he measured up to her ex-husband.” It was a stupid question ,” Alistair acknowledges.” It’s pathetic that I cared at my age- but I did. To start with she told me it was fine, but I kept pushing and, eventually, she simply told me: his was bigger .”

Alistair took out a PS5, 000 loan to add to PS3, 000 of savings, and paid to go under the knife.( Surgery is difficult to obtain on the NHS, though it can be offered for psychological reasons, or to correct a true micropenis .)” It was the worst thing I’ve ever done ,” he says.” The ache afterwards … I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t stand. It was beyond anything they told me to expect. The wound get infected, and when they gave me antibiotics, it kept oozing pus. The scarring has barely faded even now .” He says the fat injection became lumpy, while his erecting no longer stands straight.” It just doesn’t look right. It’s deformed .”

Not long after the operation, he and his partner- who had repeatedly insisted he should not have it done- split up. As we speak, he is preparing for one of his first dates since their separation.” I’m already remain concerned about what she might think if we get intimate ,” he admits.

***

Thomas Modecai, 37, a educator from Crewe, has fought with the size of his penis for most of his life.” When I was 14, I shot up to 6ft but my penis stayed the same ,” he says.” I felt like a man with a child’s penis. And it’s affected everything: my relationships, my confidence, even my desire to have children. I fretted they might have the same issue .”

The only person who has ever seen him without clothes is his wife.” But even with her- we’ve been married 14 years- I was still anxious .”

After being rejected twice by physicians (” One said,’ Don’t worry about your penis, but you’re overweight ‘”), Modecai contacted Andrology International and, in August last year, paid PS6, 800 for a duration and girth boost.

” My spouse didn’t like the idea ,” he says.” But this had been bothering me for 20 years. I’d already tried pills and potions- useless stuff you assure advertised in spam- and I was depleted. I needed it fixing .”

Since the surgery, he has felt happier and more confident.” I’m not exactly skipping round the house naked but, you know, maybe once I lose that weight ,” he says.” And we’re now thinking about children .”

I ask for his pre-op dimensions. He doesn’t want his exact measurings reported, but they are surprising: while flaccid, he was smaller than most men; erect, his penis grew significantly. Modecai, it seems, experienced two decades of stress despite the fact that, fully extended, he was bigger than the UK average. This apparent contradiction does not surprise Angela Gregory, a psychosexual therapist based at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.” Penis expansions can be about a lot of things ,” she says.” But the amount of anxiety a man experiences rarely, in my experience, correlates with his actual size .”

The sheer symbolism of what’s in a man’s gasps may be a factor. As Harrison Pope and Katharine Phillips write in their volume on male body obsessions, The Adonis Complex, genitals have been equated with” masculinity, procreative potency, and power” throughout history. This has been further compounded by an apparent rise in general masculine vanity. Figures from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons show the number of members of male procedures doubled between 2005 and 2015, with breast reduction, rhinoplasty and neck lifts especially popular. For those in need of rejuvenation, surgery is cheaper and more easily available than ever.

Eric
Eric Bell, 68, is preparing for his third enlargement:’ It stimulates me happy knowing I have something eye-opening down there .’ Photograph: Richard Baybutt

Furthermore, Gregory highlights two other most recent developments: the proliferation of pornography and the rise of TV shows where brutal physical objectification has become, for the first time, an equal-opportunities phenomenon.

” Young humen generally become preoccupied with the size of their genitals when they compare with others ,” she says.” Historically, this was limited to changing rooms or the odd top-shelf magazine. But now there is this almost routine exposure to porn via smartphones. And that is creating a generation of men whose expectations of what they should look like are entirely unattainable .”

Added to that, she says, is the popularity of displays such as Love Island where objectification comes as standard. In the summer of 2017, one male contestant was described as having” a penis like a baseball bat “; it was, unequivocally, a compliment. None of this objectification is new, of course: it’s just new for men.” But that doesn’t minimized the impact ,” Gregory says.” For the individual who is going through the trauma of fearing his penis is too small, this is still devastating .”

All this might be leading to more than simple image anxiety; some have pointed to a new mental-health issue they words penile dysmorphic ailment.” It is a minority of men- and we don’t know how many- but it certainly exists and it’s as damaging as any other body dysmorphia ,” says Professor David Veale, of King’s College London, an authority on health nervousness.” These men might seek out surgery, and for a few months they will be happy with the results. But then the same nervousness reappear. So, they seek out further surgery. It becomes a circle. But you cannot maintain building your penis bigger. This requires therapy .”

Largely, he says, these cases remain undisclosed.” Those who suffer don’t inevitably realise themselves, and rarely acknowledge it. It is an invisible illness .”

So how can we be sure it really exists?” Because the number of men seeking surgery, or the growth of this strange industry selling pills and other so-called enlargement remedies, these numbers do not map up with the numbers of men who actually have a significantly smaller penis than average ,” Veale says.” So, these men are worrying about- and trying solutions for- a problem they do not have .”

Veale’s hypothesi chimes with the experience of a retired marketings manager I gratify in a drab Sheffield consultancy room. A lifelong bachelor, Eric Bell, 68, is charming and well-dressed, if, with a beard tinted blue, a touch eccentric. He is also preparing for his third penis expansion- an operation that, judging from the sizeable member already between his legs, is unnecessary.” I’d just like it a bit fatter here ,” he explains, circling thumb and middle finger around the top of his rod.” I’m single, but it stimulates me happy knowing I have something eye-opening down there .” We spend five minutes discussing the merits of this before he asks his own question:” Can I put it away now ?”

Bell says he had his first enlargement in 2015, a year after agony the trauma of his brother drowning in York’s River Foss.” I suffered severe depression ,” he says.

Are the two things linked? “Possibly,” he says.” I don’t know. I don’t think about it .”

Bell is a patient at Moorgate Aesthetics, which has head offices in Doncaster. When I ask managing director David Mills if this may be one client who doesn’t need any more girth, he waves away the concern. Bell, he says, knows his own mind, and now passed a psychological evaluation. The operation goes ahead.

This evaluation is something all clinics I speak to insist on. It involves a patient meeting with a surgeon or psychologist to have their general mental wellbeing assessed. If there is any hint of underlying concerns, problems or mental health issues, the operation does not go ahead. But, given that such a refusal would mean clinics losing PS5, 000 a pop, one does wonder how rigorous these assessments are. Is the entire industry merely profiting off insecurity bordering on dysmorphia?

Dr Roberto Viel supposes not.” I tell my patients we can give you a bigger penis, but we cannot construct you happy ,” he says.” You must be happy first, in your heart and head. If not, this operation is not for you. All it would mean is you are still unhappy – you just have a somewhat bigger penis .”

Professor Ralph at UCL believes that some clinics are feeding patients’ unrealistic expectations.” Initially, they don’t see doctors, they ensure marketings people. It’s a hard sell:’ We can get you an extra inch or two .’ I’ve been practising in the NHS for 30 years: if it was that easy to increase the length of a normal penis, I’d be in the Mediterranean on my cruise liner now .”

Ralph thinks that” penile stretchers”, marketed under the name Andropenis, can be just as effective; but few men are prepared to make the commitment of wearing a traction device for six hours a day for six months. He also points out that, for men with an unhealthy BMI, weight loss can be enough to induce the penis appear bigger.

In a last brief dialogue with Alistair, he asks if I would ever consider going under the knife. I tell him I’ve seen such a bewildering array of shapes and sizes over the past few weeks, I don’t even know what normal is any more. If it does the job nature aimed, I say, that should be enough. For many humen wanting an expansion, it’s probably not so much about what’s in their gasps as what, somewhere along the way, has got into their minds- and that can’t be fixed by a fat injection and a severed ligament.

Alistair thinks about this and appears to agree:” Once it’s in your head, it’s difficult to let it go- even after you’ve had surgery .”

* Alistair’s name has been changed.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

They taunt vegans and eat 4lb of steak a day: meet ‘carnivore dieters’

An extreme, all animal-based diet is gaining followers in search of heightened productivity, mental lucidity, and a boosted libido. But experts convey doubts

For the past 18 months, Shawn Baker has eaten about 4lb of steak every day.

” I’ve got two rib-eye steaks waiting for me when I get off this call ,” said Baker, a developed orthopaedic surgeon, from Orange County, California.” It can be monotonous eating the same thing over and over again, but as hour goes by you start to crave it .”

The 6ft 5in bodybuilder, in his 50 s, is one of a growing number of people experimenting with the “carnivore diet”, a regimen that involves eating merely animal products like meat, offal and eggs, and no plant-based foods. It’s an extreme version of the low-carb, high-fat ketogenic diet– which trains the body to run on fat rather than carbohydrates- that has become popular in recent years. Proponents of the diet “re saying it” reduces inflammation and blood pressure while increasing libido and mental clarity.

Baker, who is nicknamed the “Carnivore King” and has amassed a cult following on social media, says the diet is easy because he doesn’t have to plan meals or count calories.” I simply have to think: how hungry am I and how many steaks do I want to eat ,” he said.

Before becoming a pure carnivore, Baker was also eating salads, spinach, dairy and nuts. Trenching these plant-based foods has been transformative for his body and athletic performance, he says.

” My joint pain and tendinitis is away, my sleep became excellent, my skin improved. I no longer had any bloating, cramping or other digestive problems, my libido went back to what it was in my 20 s and my blood pressure normalised ,” he said.

Although most medical practitioners balk at the idea of their patients ditching fruit and vegetables, the all-meat diet has been embraced by a cluster of cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, who describe themselves as” bitcoin carnivores”, a phenomenon previously reported by Motherboard.

” Bitcoin is a rebellion against fiat[ government-backed] fund, and an all-meat diet is a revolt against fiat food ,” said Michael Goldstein, a” bitcoin and meat maximalist” based in Austin, Texas.” Once someone has grown capable of seeing beyond the lies and myths that experts peddle in one domain, it becomes easier to see beyond them in other domains as well .”

Goldstein, who runs a website dedicated to carnivory called Justmeat.co, eats 2-2. 5lb of “very rare” rib-eye steak each day, at a cost of about $400 a few months. He says he never has cravings for pizza, chocolate or veggies.” They don’t even register in my brain as food .”

He argues that eating merely meat has freed up his time to get more work done.” Grocery shopping takes all of 10 minutes, most of which is standing in the checkout line. I spend little time thinking about food. I only need to eat once or twice a day( no snacking or cravings ). Basically, it’s the greatest productivity hack, and Silicon Valley should have listened to me about it while I was there .”

Saifedean Ammous, a bitcoin economist, agrees, citing a” huge improvement” in productivity.

” The ability to focus for long periods has been life transforming, and was the reason that I managed to write a 300 -page book, on bitcoin, fittingly enough !” he said.

Lily Chien-Davis, a social media specialist at San Francisco-based startup Heads Up Health, says that the enhanced productivity and mental clarity explains why this diet, like intermittent fasting, is popular in Silicon Valley.

She started feeing a very low carb diet when her husband was diagnosed with cancer- some studies indicate that a ketogenic diet can help the body fight cancers. However, Chien-Davis found that changing her eating habits alleviated her pre-diabetes.

‘ I wanted a truncheon in my gasps ‘: the rise of the penis extension

More and more men are opting for surgical penis expansion. Is it a confidence boost, or a con?

It has been more than a year since the operation, but Alistair is still furious about the results.” I paid PS8, 000 and they mutilated me ,” he says.” It was butchery. My partner said it looked like a war meander. My erection is basically ruined .”

In July 2017, the 55 -year-old decorator, from London, became one of a growing number of British men to have a surgical penis enlargement. Talk of improvement was once the preserve of promotional spam mail for bizarre-looking pills and pumps; now, it is serious clinical business. British clinics, which have taken consultancy rooms in Harley Street and in UK cities including Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and Leeds, report record numbers of patients calling on their services. One practise, the London Centre for Aesthetic Surgery, has gone from performing a handful of penis procedures annually when it opened in 1990 to more than 250 in 2017. Between 2013 and 2017, members of the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery carried out 45,604 penis enhancements worldwide. Previous numbers are unknown; the procedure was considered such a minority concern that it wasn’t included in surveys. This increase in demand seemingly caters to a growing anxiety about penis size, but it is by no means a risk-free procedure. For Alistair, dreams of a larger penis were overtaken by infections, lumps and an erection that no longer rises above a 45 -degree angle. And he is not alone. In recent years, the General Medical Council has recorded stories of” wonky penis” and erectile dysfunction following surgery. In Stockholm, last summer, a 30 -year-old man died after suffering a cardiac arrest following an operation to enlarge his penis.

***

At his Harley Street clinic, Dr Roberto Viel is explaining how a typical expansion works. First, surgeons sever the organ’s suspensory ligament, causing it to hang an inch or two lower, giving the impression of extra duration. They then extract fat from the patient’s belly and inject it into the penis rod, increasing circumference by around two inches. Erect, it’s worth noting, it remains roughly the same size, suggesting the motives for many humen are not inevitably to enhance either their- or a partner’s- sex experience.

The procedure, which can cost more than PS5, 000, lasts a little over an hour, but causes enough residual inconvenience that doctors recommend patients take a week off run. The penis remains bandaged for 10 days. Sex is off the cards for a month. Erection suppressants are prescribed to avoid stitches being rent open.

” Operations are very safe ,” says Viel, who founded the London Centre for Aesthetic Surgery with his twin brother Maurizio.” Perhaps 95% of our patients are happy. Where they are not, it is often to do with expectations. Some men want 10 inches when nature dedicated them four or five. I have to say, gently,’ This is not possible. I am not a miracle worker .'”

Photograph
Photograph: Ilka& Franz for the Guardian

William O’Connor, a 38 -year-old mechanic from Northampton, is one of his satisfied customers- and it’s easy to understand why. Think of a large can of aerosol deodorant and you have, roughly enough, his new dimensions.” There was one woman who took one look at it and just ran,’ That thing is coming nowhere near me ,'” he says.” But mostly it goes down very well. I’ve seen a lot of eyes light up .”

Though liberally endowed by nature and confident enough in his body to have appeared in some adult films in his 20 s, O’Connor decided to enhance his girth in 2013.” It was just something I imagination ,” he says with a shrug.” Some men have hair transplants or belly tucks. I wanted a truncheon in my gasps. My whole life I’ve enjoyed impressing girls; this was just an extension of that. You could call it a gentlemanly thing to do .”

O’Connor says he had no concerns beforehand (” My main worry was having the anaesthetic- I’m scared of needles “) and no sadness afterwards. The ache was manageable and there were no complications. He views the procedure as akin to working out.” I’m not obsessed by my body- I have too many other things going on in my life ,” O’Connor says.” But I’m proud of it and I like that it’s in good shape- every part of it .”

The surgery should have no impact on fertility; O’Connor has since married and fathered two children( he also has four from a previous relationship ).” I gratify her after the op, but she was a family friend and knew I’d had it done. I’ve never asked if it was a plus point .”

***

Amr Raheem is an andrology specialist( meaning his focus is on medicine relating to men) at University College London Hospitals, as well as a surgeon at International Andrology, a private clinic in the capital. Over the past 15 years, he has carried out more than 250 enlargements.” There is no typical patient ,” Raheem says.” All professions, all ethnicities, married, single, homosexual, straight-out, rich, poor. It’s across the board. And all ages. I’ve worked on humen in their 60 s- I don’t know if they go out and use it afterwards. Early 20 s, I won’t do. These are still boys. They must get to know it before they change it .”

Patients come in all shapes and sizes:” I’ve had men who are already large enough. I had one say he wanted to be like a milk bottle. Impossible .”

If there is one unifying factor, it is a lack of confidence about what nature has provided. The average length of a British penis is, according to a 2016 King’ s College London study, 5.16 in erect and 3.67 in flaccid. Merely 0. 14% of men have what one University of California study defined as a “micropenis”- that is, less than 2.5 inches when erect. Nonetheless, study after study shows displeasure remains widespread among men.

” These are the men who come to us ,” Raheem says.” They are not inevitably small, but they want to feel more confident. In front of women, yes, but in front of other humen, too, down the gym, that sort of thing .”

Many of his patients, he adds, have previously” avoided sexuality or situations where they would be exposed, out of embarrassment. So this attains them happier .”

Not all operations leave happy clients- infections and scarring are both potential side-effects (” This is the same as an operation of any kind ,” Viel says ). Some humen report a decline in angle after the suspensory ligament is cut, but according to David Ralph, a prof of urology at UCL,” By and big, patients don’t complain about that. The operation doesn’t alteration the erect duration at all- this is only for men who have anxiety about how they look in the changing rooms. The median increase in size is 1.3 cm, less than the diameter of a 1p coin. In my clinics, I present patients one of these and ask if they still think it is worth it. Less than 5% decide to, and of those who do, the satisfaction rate is just 20% .”

Occasionally, the cut ligament leaves genitals lopsided when flaccid, and pointing off to the left or right when erect, as Francis Tilley, director of London clinic Androfill, explains.” Ligaments are there for a reason ,” he says.” If you start cutting at them, the stability of the penis will be reduced: the erecting will be lower and less straight .” Tilley’s practise offers the operation, but its website clearly identifies it as high risk.

One Stockport-based surgeon, Ravi Kant Agarwal, was struck off( though later allowed to practise again) after botching two procedures. One of his patients, the General Medical Council hear, was left with a penis” bent like a boomerang “. Agarwal was criticised for failing to explain potential complications and misleading patients about the possible outcome, as well as for not having anaesthetic backup during the operations.

Alistair decided to have the operation after 40 years of anxiety.” I played Sunday football and dreaded the changing rooms ,” he says.” It’s not so much the length as how thin and scrawny it was .”

Six
Photograph: Ilka& Franz for the Guardian

He married, had children and learned to live with his unease. Then, four years ago, after separating from his wife, he asked a new partner how he measured up to her ex-husband.” It was a stupid question ,” Alistair admits.” It’s pathetic that I cared at my age- but I did. To start with she told me it was fine, but I maintained pushing and, eventually, she merely told me: his was bigger .”

Alistair took out a PS5, 000 loan to add to PS3, 000 of savings, and paid to go under the knife.( Surgery is difficult to obtain on the NHS, though it can be offered for psychological reasons, or to correct a true micropenis .)” It was the worst thing I’ve ever done ,” he says.” The ache afterwards … I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t stand. It was beyond anything they told me to expect. The wound got infected, and when they gave me antibiotics, it kept seeping pus. The scarring has barely faded even now .” He says the fat injection became lumpy, while his erection no longer stands straight.” It just doesn’t look right. It’s deformed .”

Not long after the operation, he and his partner- who had repeatedly insisted he should not have it done- split up. As we speak, he is preparing for one of his first dates since their separation.” I’m already remain concerned about what she might think if we get intimate ,” he admits.

***

Thomas Modecai, 37, a teacher from Crewe, has fought with the size of his penis for most of his life.” When I was 14, I shot up to 6ft but my penis stayed the same ,” he says.” I felt like a human with a child’s penis. And it’s affected everything: my relationships, my confidence, even my desire to have children. I fretted they might have the same issue .”

The only person who has ever seen him without clothes is his wife.” But even with her- we’ve been married 14 years- I was still anxious .”

After being dismissed twice by physicians (” One said,’ Don’t worry about your penis, but you’re overweight ‘”), Modecai contacted Andrology International and, in August last year, paid PS6, 800 for a duration and girth boost.

” My wife didn’t like the idea ,” he says.” But this had been bothering me for 20 years. I’d already tried pills and potions- useless stuff you insure advertised in spam- and I was depleted. I needed it fixing .”

Since the surgery, he has felt happier and more confident.” I’m not exactly skipping round the house naked but, you are aware, maybe once I lose that weight ,” he says.” And we’re now thinking about children .”

I ask for his pre-op dimensions. He doesn’t want his exact measurings reported, but the issue is surprising: while flaccid, he was smaller than most men; erect, his penis grew significantly. Modecai, it seems, experienced two decades of stress despite the fact that, fully extended, he was bigger than the UK average. This apparent contradiction does not surprise Angela Gregory, a psychosexual therapist based at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.” Penis expansions can be about a lot of things ,” she says.” But the amount of anxiety a man experiences rarely, in my experience, correlates with his actual size .”

The sheer symbolism of what’s in a man’s gasps may be a factor. As Harrison Pope and Katharine Phillips write in their volume on male body obsessions, The Adonis Complex, genitals have been equated with” virility, procreative effectivenes, and power” throughout history. This has been further compounded by an apparent rise in general masculine vanity. Figures from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons indicate the total number of male procedures doubled between 2005 and 2015, with breast reduction, rhinoplasty and neck lifts especially popular. For those in need of rejuvenation, surgery is cheaper and more easily available than ever.

Eric
Eric Bell, 68, is preparing for his third enlargement:’ It constructs me happy knowing I have something eye-opening down there .’ Photograph: Richard Baybutt

Furthermore, Gregory highlightings two other recent developments: the proliferation of pornography and the rise of TV shows where brutal physical objectification has become, for the first time, an equal-opportunities phenomenon.

” Young men generally become preoccupied with the size of their genitals when they compare with others ,” she says.” Historically, this was limited to changing rooms or the odd top-shelf magazine. But now there is this almost routine exposure to porn via smartphones. And that is creating a generation of men whose expectations of what they should look like are entirely unattainable .”

Added to that, she says, is the popularity of indicates such as Love Island where objectification comes as standard. In the summer of 2017, one male contestant was described as having” a penis like a baseball bat “; it was, unequivocally, a compliment. None of this objectification is new, of course: it’s just new for men.” But that doesn’t lessened the impact ,” Gregory says.” For the individual who is going through the trauma of fearing his penis is too small, this is still devastating .”

All this might be leading to more than simple image anxiety; some have pointed to a new mental-health issue they term penile dysmorphic ailment.” It is a minority of men- and we don’t know how many- but it certainly exists and it’s as damaging as any other body dysmorphia ,” says Professor David Veale, of King’s College London, an authority on health nervousness.” These humen might seek out surgery, and for a few months they will be happy with the results. But then the same anxieties reappear. So, they seek out further surgery. It becomes a circle. But you cannot keep making your penis bigger. This necessitates therapy .”

Largely, he says, these cases remain undisclosed.” Those who suffer don’t inevitably realise themselves, and rarely admit it. It is an invisible illness .”

So how can we be sure it really exists?” Because the number of men attempting surgery, or the growth of this strange industry selling pills and other so-called enlargement redress, these numbers do not map up with the numbers of men who actually have a significantly smaller penis than average ,” Veale says.” So, these men are worrying about- and seeking answers for- a number of problems they do not have .”

Veale’s theory chimes with the experience of a retired marketings administrator I fulfill in a drab Sheffield consultancy room. A lifelong bachelor, Eric Bell, 68, is charming and well-dressed, if, with a beard tinted blue, a touch eccentric. He is also preparing for his third penis expansion- an operation that, judging from the sizeable member already between his legs, is unnecessary.” I’d just like it a bit fatter here ,” he explains, circling thumb and middle finger around the top of his shaft.” I’m single, but it stimulates me happy knowing I have something eye-opening down there .” We expend five minutes discussing the merits of this before he asks his own question:” Can I put it away now ?”

Bell says he had his first enlargement in 2015, a year after suffering the trauma of his brother drowning in York’s River Foss.” I suffered severe depression ,” he says.

Are the two things linked? “Possibly,” he says.” I don’t know. I don’t think about it .”

Bell is a patient at Moorgate Aesthetics, which has head offices in Doncaster. When I ask managing director David Mills if this may be one client who doesn’t need any more girth, he waves away the concern. Bell, he says, knows his own intellect, and has passed a psychological evaluation. The operation goes ahead.

This evaluation is something all clinics I speak to insist on. It involves a patient meeting with a surgeon or psychologist to have their general mental wellbeing assessed. If there is any hint of underlying concerns, problems or mental health issues, the operation does not go ahead. But, given that such a refusal would entail clinics losing PS5, 000 a pop, one does wonder how rigorous these assessments are. Is the entire industry merely profiting off insecurity bordering on dysmorphia?

Dr Roberto Viel believes not.” I tell my patients we can give you a bigger penis, but we cannot stimulate you happy ,” he says.” You must be happy first, in your heart and head. If not, this operation “re not for” you. All it would entail is you are still unhappy – you just have a slightly bigger penis .”

Professor Ralph at UCL believes that some clinics are feeding patients’ unrealistic expectations.” Initially, they don’t see doctors, they consider sales people. It’s a hard sell:’ We can get you an extra inch or two .’ I’ve been practising in the NHS for 30 years: if it was that easy to increase the length of a normal penis, I’d be in the Mediterranean on my cruise liner now .”

Ralph thinks that” penile stretchers”, marketed under the name Andropenis, can be just as effective; but few humen are prepared to build such commitments of wearing a traction device for six hours a day for six months. He also points out that, for men with an unhealthy BMI, weight loss can be enough to build the penis appear bigger.

In a last brief conversation with Alistair, he asks if I would ever consider running under the knife. I tell him I’ve seen such a bewildering array of shapes and sizes over the past few weeks, I don’t even know what normal is any more. If it does the job nature intended, I say, that should be enough. For many men wanting an enlargement, it’s probably not so much about what’s in their pants as what, somewhere along the way, has got into their intellects- and that can’t be fixed by a fat injection and a severed ligament.

Alistair thinks about this and appears to agree:” Once it’s in your head, it’s difficult to let it go- even after you’ve had surgery .”

* Alistair’s name has been changed.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

Chonky, fluffy, thicc: inside the internet’s obsession with fat cat on diets

More social media accounts are dedicating themselves to specific chonky the bag of cats and their weight-loss efforts

They’re chonky, they’re fluffy, they’re thicc and body pawsitive. They’re round sons, floofs and absolute units.

The new animal trend on the internet celebrates the rotund and plump, with social media users focusing on the adorableness of a cat’s rounded cheeks, a hamster’s many rolls, a dog’s rounded shape and a raccoon’s voluptuous volume.

The Instagram account Chonky Animals has more than 409,000 adherents while the Round Boys and Round Animals accounts top out at more than 455,000 and 487,000, respectively. The Facebook group, This Cat is Chonky, has more than 395,000 members and hundreds of new posts each day.

The trend creates concerns about overfeeding and maintaining a pet unhealthy for the sake of cuteness. While humans can decide if they are healthy at every sizing, animals cannot , nor do they have the ability to tell their owners if they need help. But it has also inspired a wholesome movement toward building sure these animals remain healthy, as well as cute. More and more accounts are now dedicating themselves to specific chonky cats- and their weight-loss efforts.

” A heavy cat is pretty adorable ,” said Mike Wilson, one of the owners of Bronson, a cat who was 33 pounds when he was adopted and is now 23 pounds, one year later.” A big cat on a diet is a guilt-free way to follow an obese cat .”

In addition to Bronson, who has more than 214,000 followers, there’s Bruno Bartlett, the gray polydactyl cat that likes to stand on his hind legs, and his brother, Carlo. On Facebook, Fat Laila’s efforts at fat camp are lovingly documented, as well as her missteps- when she snuck into the closet to steal treats one night.

” There’s a reason why the internet is so preoccupied with fat cats ,” said Lauren Paris, the owner of Bruno and Carlo. “They’re so cute.”

Paris felt drawn to Bruno when stories about a “thicc” cat up for adoption went viral last year. She and her friend wrote a song, Give Me That Fat Cat, ensuring not just the adoption, but Bruno’s Instagram stardom.

However, upon session him, she knew his claim to fame – his chub- could not stay.

” He was so adorable, but he was able to barely move ,” Paris said.” The shelter was doing the best they could do, but he lived in a room with other cats and he would just eat their food .”

Bronson
Bronson has now slimmed down to 23 pounds. Photograph: Courtesy of Mike Wilson

Because Bruno was already so public, his weight-loss journey became public as well. Paris posts when Bruno loses a pound, along with tongue-in-cheek hashtags such as” real cats have curves “. She posts pictures of him gazing longingly at human food, or meowing in the background to cooking bacon.

” I’m not going to lie, I think fat cats are cute, but not so cute that they shouldn’t be on a diet ,” Paris said.” Bruno, we look back at old videos of him and we guess,’ oh he’s so cute ,’ but he’s really cute now and he’s going to live a lot longer. That’s style better .”

Wilson and Bronson’s other owner, Megan Hanneman, felt the same way when it came to Bronson’s health. When they met him, he had to lie down to eat.” He merely was like a giant swollen ball ,” Wilson said.

” He was three years old and he weighed 33 pounds ,” Hanneman said.” The standard cat weighs like nine pounds, so he was about the dimensions of the three fairly big cats at three years old. He couldn’t move around .”

Bronson used to cry for more food before Wilson and Hanneman switched him to a wet diet that was less caloric but more filling. Even worse was when he would coax them awake for feedings.” At 3 in the morning, he’d come over and lay on us and purr in our faces ,” Hanneman said.

They enjoy posting about his weight-loss journey because cat weight loss is difficult. If cats lose weight too quickly, they can develop fatty liver disease, and typically sleep 18 hours a day and are hard to exercise, said Shari O’Neill, the chief shelter veterinarian at the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Cat are also grazers, so it’s hard to measure out how much food they need to get through a day.

” It’s been a lot of fun sharing tips-off on losing weight and things we’re doing with Bronson, knowing that a lot of people have this issue with their cat, even if it’s not that extreme ,” Wilson said.

But as with anything on the internet, there are trolls. “We’ve seen it all,” Paris said.” We watch,’ You’re mistreat this cat ‘. We also ensure,’ I miss when Bruno was fat ‘.”

Some of the top regulations in the Facebook group, This Cat is Chonky, include no chonk-shaming , no owner-shaming and don’t do politics or medical advice.

” People watch a picture of a fat cat and they think we attained it fat ,” Paris said.” Or when we just started to show his weight-loss photos, people who don’t know anything about cats will say,’ Oh, he only lost two pounds? Well he should have lost more by now .”

She continued:” You don’t know why a cat is fat. You don’t know what diets ought to have tried. You don’t know if it has diabetes or not .”

In between cute pictures of Bronson and videos of his monthly weigh-ins, Wilson and Hanneman also post about adoptable cats around the country that are largely overweight, something Paris thinks is a much-needed effort.

” Something that’s good about this internet trend is that it does draw attention to these pets that would be passed by traditionally ,” she said.” All of these famous chonky cats came from shelters. I think that shines a really good light. Kittens are more likely to be adopted, but if these internet-famous chonky cats are more likely to get adult cats adopted, then we did our undertakings .”

Read more: www.theguardian.com

‘ I wanted a truncheon in my pants ‘: the rise of the penis extension

More and more men are opting for surgical penis enlargement. Is it a confidence boost, or a con?

It has been more than a year since the operation, but Alistair is still furious about the results.” I paid PS8, 000 and they mutilated me ,” he says.” It was butchery. My partner said it looked like a war meander. My erection is basically ruined .”

In July 2017, the 55 -year-old decorator, from London, became one of a growing number of British humen to have a surgical penis expansion. Talk of improvement was once the conserve of promotional spam mail for bizarre-looking pills and pumps; now, it is serious clinical business. British clinics, which have taken consultancy rooms in Harley Street and in UK cities including Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and Leeds, report record numbers of patients calling on their services. One practice, the London Centre for Aesthetic Surgery, has gone from performing a handful of penis procedures annually when it opened in 1990 to more than 250 in 2017. Between 2013 and 2017, members of the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery carried out 45,604 penis enhancements worldwide. Previous numbers are unknown; the procedure was considered such a minority concern that it wasn’t included in surveys. This increase in demand seemingly caters to a growing nervousnes about penis size, but it is by no means a risk-free procedure. For Alistair, dreams of a larger penis were overtaken by infections, lumps and an erection that no longer rises above a 45 -degree angle. And he is not alone. In recent years, the General Medical Council has recorded tales of” wonky penis” and erectile dysfunction following surgery. In Stockholm, last summertime, a 30 -year-old man died after agony a cardiac arrest following an operation to enlarge his penis.

***

At his Harley Street clinic, Dr Roberto Viel is explaining how a typical enlargement works. First, surgeons sever the organ’s suspensory ligament, causing it to hang an inch or two lower, giving the impression of extra length. They then extract fat from the patient’s stomach and inject it into the penis rod, increasing girth by around two inches. Erect, it’s worth noting, it remains roughly the same size, suggesting the motives for many men are not necessarily to enhance either their- or a partner’s- sex experience.

The procedure, which can cost more than PS5, 000, lasts a little over an hour, but causes enough residual discomfort that physicians recommend patients take a week off work. The penis remains bandaged for 10 days. Sex is off the cards for a month. Erection suppressants are prescribed to avoid sews being rent open.

” Operations are very safe ,” says Viel, who founded the London Centre for Aesthetic Surgery with his twin brother Maurizio.” Perhaps 95% of our patients are happy. Where they are not, it is often to do with expectations. Some humen want 10 inches when nature dedicated them four or five. I have to say, gently,’ This is not possible. I am not a miracle worker .'”

Photograph
Photograph: Ilka& Franz for the Guardian

William O’Connor, a 38 -year-old mechanic from Northampton, is one of his satisfied clients- and it’s easy to understand why. Think of a large can of aerosol deodorant and you have, roughly enough, his new dimensions.” There was one woman who took one look at it and only went,’ That thing is coming nowhere near me ,'” he says.” But mostly it goes down very well. I’ve seen a lot of eyes light up .”

Though liberally endowed by nature and confident enough in his body to have appeared in some adult movies in his 20 s, O’Connor decided to enhance his girth in 2013.” It was just something I fancied ,” he says with a shrug.” Some humen have hair transplants or belly tucks. I wanted a truncheon in my gasps. My whole life I’ve enjoyed impressing females; this was just an extension of that. You could call it a gentlemanly thing to do .”

O’Connor says he had no concerns beforehand (” My main worry was having the anaesthetic- I’m scared of needles “) and no regrets afterwards. The ache was manageable and there were no complications. He views the procedure as akin to working out.” I’m not obsessed by my body- I have too many other things going on in my life ,” O’Connor says.” But I’m proud of it and I like that it’s in good shape- every part of it .”

The surgery should have no impact on fertility; O’Connor has since married and parent two children( he also has four from a previous relationship ).” I satisfy her after the op, but she was a family friend and knew I’d had it done. I’ve never asked if it was a plus phase .”

***

Amr Raheem is an andrology specialist( meaning his focus is on medicine relating to humen) at University College London Hospitals, as well as a surgeon at International Andrology, a private clinic in the capital city. Over the past 15 years, he has carried out more than 250 expansions.” There is no typical patient ,” Raheem says.” All professions, all ethnicities, married, single, homosexual, straight-out, rich, poor. It’s across the board. And all ages. I’ve worked on humen in their 60 s- I don’t know if they go out and use it afterwards. Early 20 s, I won’t do. These are still boys. They must get to know it before they change it .”

Patients come in all shapes and sizes:” I’ve had men who are already large enough. I had one say he wanted to be like a milk bottle. Impossible .”

If there is one unifying factor, it is a lack of confidence about what nature has provided. The average duration of a British penis is, according to a 2016 King’ s College London study, 5.16 in erect and 3.67 in flaccid. Merely 0. 14% of men have what one University of California study defined as a “micropenis”- that is, less than 2.5 inches when erect. Nonetheless, study after study indicates frustration remains widespread among men.

” These are the men who come to us ,” Raheem says.” They are not necessarily small, but they want to feel more confident. In front of women, yes, but in front of other humen, too, down the gym, that sort of thing .”

Many of his patients, he adds, has already been” avoided sex or situations where they would be uncovered, out of embarrassment. So this builds them happier .”

Not all operations leave happy clients- infections and scarring are both potential side-effects (” This is the same as an operation of any kind ,” Viel says ). Some men report a decline in angle after the suspensory ligament is cut, but according to David Ralph, a professor of urology at UCL,” By and big, patients don’t complain about that. The operation doesn’t change the erect duration at all- this is only for men who have anxiety about how they look in the changing rooms. The median increase in size is 1.3 cm, less than the diameter of a 1p coin. In my clinics, I demonstrate patients one of these and ask if they still think it is worth it. Less than 5% decide to, and of those who do, the gratification rate is just 20% .”

Occasionally, the cut ligament leaves genitals lopsided when flaccid, and pointing off to the left or right when erect, as Francis Tilley, director of London clinic Androfill, explains.” Ligaments are there for a reason ,” he says.” If you start cutting at them, the stability of the penis will be reduced: the erection will be lower and less straight .” Tilley’s practice offers the operation, but its website clearly identifies it as high risk.

One Stockport-based surgeon, Ravi Kant Agarwal, was hit off( though later allowed to practise again) after botching two procedures. One of his patients, the General Medical Council heard, was left with a penis” bent like a boomerang “. Agarwal was criticised for failing to explain potential complications and misleading patients about the possible outcome, as well as for not having anaesthetic backup during the operations.

Alistair decided to have the operation after 40 years of anxiety.” I played Sunday football and dreaded the changing rooms ,” he says.” It’s not so much the length as how thin and scrawny it was .”

Six
Photograph: Ilka& Franz for the Guardian

He married, had children and learned to live with his malaise. Then, four years ago, after separating from his wife, he asked a new partner how he measured up to her ex-husband.” It was a stupid question ,” Alistair admits.” It’s pathetic that I cared at my age- but I did. To start with she told me it was fine, but I maintained pushing and, eventually, she only told me: his was bigger .”

Alistair took out a PS5, 000 loan to add to PS3, 000 of savings, and paid to go under the knife.( Surgery is difficult to obtain on the NHS, though it can be offered for psychological reasons, or to correct a true micropenis .)” It was the worst thing I’ve ever done ,” he says.” The pain afterwards … I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t stand. It was beyond anything they told me to expect. The wound get infected, and when they gave me antibiotics, it maintained oozing pus. The scarring has barely faded even now .” He says the fat injection became lumpy, while his erection no longer stands straight.” It simply doesn’t look right. It’s deformed .”

Not long after the operation, he and his partner- who had repeatedly insisted he should not have it done- split up. As we speak, he is preparing for one of his first dates since their separation.” I’m already remain concerned about what she might think if we get intimate ,” he admits.

***

Thomas Modecai, 37, a teacher from Crewe, has fought with the size of his penis for most of his life.” When I was 14, I shot up to 6ft but my penis stayed the same ,” he says.” I felt like a human with a child’s penis. And it’s affected everything: my relationships, my confidence, even my desire to have children. I fretted they might have the same issue .”

The only person who has ever seen him without clothes is his wife.” But even with her- we’ve been married 14 years- I was still anxious .”

After being dismissed twice by physicians (” One said,’ Don’t worry about your penis, but you’re overweight ‘”), Modecai contacted Andrology International and, in August last year, paid PS6, 800 for a length and girth boost.

” My wife didn’t like the idea ,” he says.” But this had been bothering me for 20 years. I’d already tried pills and potions- useless stuff you consider advertised in spam- and I was exhausted. I needed it fixing .”

Since the surgery, he has felt happier and more confident.” I’m not exactly skipping round the house naked but, you know, maybe once I lose that weight ,” he says.” And we’re now thinking about children .”

I ask for his pre-op dimensions. He doesn’t want his exact measurings reported, but they are surprising: while flaccid, he was smaller than most men; erect, his penis grew significantly. Modecai, it seems, experienced two decades of stress despite the fact that, fully widened, he was bigger than the UK average. This apparent contradiction does not surprise Angela Gregory, a psychosexual therapist based at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.” Penis expansions can be about a lot of things ,” she says.” But the amount of anxiety a man experiences rarely, in my experience, correlates with his actual size .”

The sheer symbolism of what’s in a man’s gasps may be a factor. As Harrison Pope and Katharine Phillips write in their book on male body preoccupations, The Adonis Complex, genitals ought to have equated with” masculinity, procreative effectivenes, and power” throughout history. This has been further compounded by an apparent rise in general masculine vanity. Figures from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons present the total number of male procedures doubled between 2005 and 2015, with breast reduction, rhinoplasty and neck lifts especially popular. For those in need of rejuvenation, surgery is cheaper and more easily available than ever.

Eric
Eric Bell, 68, is preparing for his third expansion:’ It induces me happy knowing I have something eye-opening down there .’ Photograph: Richard Baybutt

Furthermore, Gregory highlightings two other recent developments: the proliferation of pornography and the rise of TV shows where brutal physical objectification has become, for the first time, an equal-opportunities phenomenon.

” Young humen generally become preoccupied with the size of their genitals when they compare with others ,” she says.” Historically, this was limited to changing rooms or the odd top-shelf magazine. But now there is this almost routine exposure to porn via smartphones. And that is creating a generation of men whose expectations of what they should look like are entirely unattainable .”

Added to that, she says, is the popularity of reveals such as Love Island where objectification comes as standard. In the summer of 2017, one male contestant was described as having” a penis like a baseball bat “; it was, unequivocally, a compliment. None of this objectification is new, of course: it’s just new for men.” But that doesn’t mitigated the impact ,” Gregory says.” For the individual who is going through the trauma of dreading his penis is too small, this is still devastating .”

All this might be leading to more than simple image anxiety; some have pointed to a new mental-health issue they words penile dysmorphic disorder.” It is a minority of men- and we don’t know how many- but it certainly exists and it’s as damaging as any other body dysmorphia ,” says Professor David Veale, of King’s College London, an authority on health anxieties.” These men might seek out surgery, and for a few months they will be happy with the results. But then the same anxieties reappear. So, they seek out further surgery. It becomes a circle. But you cannot keep making your penis bigger. This requires therapy .”

Largely, he says, these cases remain undisclosed.” Those who suffer don’t inevitably realise themselves, and rarely acknowledge it. It is an invisible illness .”

So how can we be sure it really exists?” Because the number of men seeking surgery, or the growth of this strange industry selling pills and other so-called enlargement redress, these numbers do not map up with the numbers of men who actually have a significantly smaller penis than average ,” Veale says.” So, these men are worrying about- and trying answers for- a problem they do not have .”

Veale’s theory chimes with the experience of a retired marketings director I satisfy in a drab Sheffield consultancy room. A lifelong bachelor, Eric Bell, 68, is charming and well-dressed, if, with a beard tinted blue, a touch eccentric. He is also in preparations for his third penis expansion- an operation that, judging from the sizeable member already between his legs, is unnecessary.” I’d just like it a bit fatter here ,” he explains, circling thumb and middle thumb around the top of his shaft.” I’m single, but it induces me happy knowing I have something eye-opening down there .” We expend five minutes discussing the merits of this before he asks his own question:” Can I put it away now ?”

Bell says he had his first enlargement in 2015, a year after agony the trauma of his brother drowning in York’s River Foss.” I suffered severe depression ,” he says.

Are the two things linked? “Possibly,” he says.” I don’t know. I don’t think about it .”

Bell is a patient at Moorgate Aesthetics, which has head offices in Doncaster. When I ask managing director David Mills if this may be one client who doesn’t need any more girth, he waves away the concern. Bell, he says, knows his own mind, and has passed a psychological evaluation. The operation goes ahead.

This evaluation is something all clinics I speak to insist on. It involves a patient meeting with a surgeon or psychologist to have their general mental wellbeing assessed. If there is any hint of underlying concerns, problems or mental health issues, the operation does not go ahead. But, given that such a repudiation would entail clinics losing PS5, 000 a pop, one does wonder how rigorous these assessments are. Is the entire industry merely profiting off insecurity bordering on dysmorphia?

Dr Roberto Viel supposes not.” I tell my patients we can give you a bigger penis, but we cannot build you happy ,” he says.” You must be happy first, in your heart and head. If not, this operation “re not for” you. All it would mean is you are still unhappy – you just have a slightly bigger penis .”

Professor Ralph at UCL believes that some clinics are feeding patients’ unrealistic expectations.” Initially, they don’t see doctors, they watch marketings people. It’s a hard sell:’ We can get you an extra inch or two .’ I’ve been practising in the NHS for 30 years: if it was that easy to increase the length of a normal penis, I’d be in the Mediterranean on my cruise liner now .”

Ralph thinks that” penile stretchers”, marketed under the name Andropenis, can be just as effective; but few humen are prepared to stimulate the commitment of wearing a traction device for six hours a day for six months. He also points out that, for men with an unhealthy BMI, weight loss can be enough to induce the penis appear bigger.

In a last brief conversation with Alistair, he asks if I would ever consider running under the knife. I tell him I’ve seen such a bewildering array of shapes and sizings over the past few weeks, I don’t even know what normal is any more. If it does the job nature intended, I say, that should be enough. For many humen wanting an expansion, it’s probably not so much about what’s in their pants as what, somewhere along the way, has got into their minds- and that can’t be fixed by a fat injection and a severed ligament.

Alistair thinks about this and appears to agree:” Once it’s in your head, it’s difficult to let it go- even after you’ve had surgery .”

* Alistair’s name has been changed.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

Body of work: why Billie Eilish is right to stand her ground against dishonor

Billie Eilish has done everything right in her career so far, but thats not enough for a celebrity industry fixated on sex

Billie Eilish has given the music industry everything it could possibly want. An authentic new voice that appeals to teens and their parents. A debut album that has sold more than 2m transcripts in the US alone. A decisive stylistic evolution from the preceding decade’s dominant pop mode. A clean sweep of the four key categories at the Grammys. A copper-bottomed streaming success model. A James Bond theme that rejuvenates a tired franchise and widens her commercial and creative clout.

Until she offers up her prime commodity as a young female pop starring, it will never be enough.

While 18 -year-old Eilish is a beguilingly physical musician, she has never shown her body in service of her art. She opts loose garb because she feels comfy in it, and has denounced the use of her image to dishonor female pop starrings who dress differently. Not that it’s stopped anyone. Denying spectators the traditional metric by which female superstars are judged- sexiness, slimness; the body as weathervane that reveals how tormented or contented they must be when they lurch between the extremes of those states- has created an obsession with her body and what it must stand for.

Eilish’s world tour- which opened last night in Miami- underscores these contradictions:” While I feel your gazes, your disapproval or your sighs of relief, if I lived by them, I’d never be able to move ,” she says in a video demonstrate between sungs, as she removes her top and sinks into a pond of black water.” Would you like me to be smaller? Weaker? Softer? Taller? Would you like me to be quiet? Do my shoulders elicit you? Does my chest? Am I my stomach? My hips ?”

As if to prove her phase, the Sun reported on Eilish” stripping to her bra” with zero mention of her speech or its message, and titled their narrative” Thrilly Eilish “. Again: Eilish is 18 years old.

alexa 78 (@ ILOMIL0S)

empowering pic.twitter.com/ IBOl9LF 0rU

March 10, 2020

It’s hard to think of any previous generation of young female pop starring getting away with making such a public admonishment at the height of their stardom. Motown’s girls were taught comportment by an in-house employee. The anorexia that killed Karen Carpenter was framed as an effective diet. To have her art taken seriously, Kate Bush had to endure the objectification of male journalists who typed with one hand. The Spice Girls had to wait until after the band’s demise to discuss their respective eating disorders, lest they disrupt the image of supportive female friendship. Britney, Christina and Beyonce’s millennium-era abs were testament to their drilled work ethic; Katy Perry and Ariana Grande’s burgeoning images were dependent on marketing their sexuality, while Taylor Swift’s taut middle stoked her image as an American ideal. To recognise Amy Winehouse’s bulimia would have complicated a convenient media narrative of debauchery.

In that context, Eilish’s freedom to speak out represents a kind of progress. It’s symptomatic of the control that she has retained over her career, and its impact on her fans is potentially profound. But being anointed a liberating force in the body-image stakes is its own kind of prison, one that preserves physicality as the ultimate measure of a female star’s worth- and the standard by which they can be undermined. The music industry and the media like to pat themselves on the back for stimulating superstars of Eilish and Lizzo, who often joins her in headlines about body positivity, though if these women one day wish to change their physical presentation, they will be accused of betraying fans and squandering their authenticity.

It is a minority of female musicians who are permitted this limiting form of freedom in the first place. Beyond Eilish and Lizzo’s presence at this year’s Brit awards, the photos from the red carpet looked like scenes from 2002: female musicians and influencers bearing aggressively toned abs, low-slung sparkly pants, attires with gaping cutaways to highlight those impacts. The media may praise Taylor Swift for speaking out about the ailment feeing that she experienced until a few years ago, but it still perpetuates the standards that mean record labels will subject young, female pop starrings to the penalizing diets and exercise routines that Swift has described from her past. Female musicians who gain weight rarely return to the prime of their careers. Dua Lipa’s new video features an exercise routine. The narrative around Adele‘s fourth album, due later this year, is already centred on her recent weight loss.

Ever since the pianist Clara Schumann proved herself a concert virtuoso, female artists have had their creative worth tied to their physicality. The standards are so penalizing and contradictory that it is hard not to suspect that they are purposefully engineered that way, to guarantee obsolescence as they succumb to human fallibility, thus clearing the decks to wave in a new phalanx of young bodies to ogle. As long as the industries that depend on its exploitation continue to exist, and new generations of onlookers are trained in envy and contempt for those bodies, this won’t change.

As the industry races to replicate Eilish’s success and the media starvations for more young girls to compel positions, you’d hope they would heed how this therapy has evidently affected her and ensure that no young female superstar is ever again subject to these vicious criteria. As if.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

Am I happier because I’m thinner, or thinner because I’m happier?

Looking in the mirror, I feel happy with my new body shape. But thats not what body positivity taught me to do

The first time I felt body euphoria was in an Old Navy dressing room. The floor was sticky with inexplicable customer gunk, a toddler was sobbing in the next stall and I was wearing jeans five sizes smaller than usual.

I gaped at my reflection in awe. It’s not just that the jeans fit; I could also assure my collarbones, which had been hidden under layers of fat and tissue for so long that I forgot I had them. My jaw line was more pronounced, and my belly didn’t jut out the style I recollected it to.

I had lost more than 100 pounds, and I could see the difference right there in the mirror.

With euphoria came guilt. It upset me that I liked my new reflection so much, because I didn’t know why I was happy with it. For years, I had subscribed to the notion that defining women’s worth by their weight was a feminist cardinal sin. Like countless others, I had found self-love and adoption in the arms of the body positivity movement.

It offered me a welcome respite from the stress of constantly looking at myself with a critical eye, as well as a counterattack to the once predominating idea that dishonor gets bodies in shape( it doesn’t ). So why was I so happy at the sight of my new, thinner shape?

I lost more than 100 pounds in two parts over 18 months, during two big stages of my life. The first occurs when I ran from a depressed, overworked college student to a emphasized, fully utilized adult. I replaced meals with coffee and eat once daily- usually the easiest thing I could pop into the microwave after a 12 -hour day. On top of my 9-5 task, my four-hour daily commute constructed finding any time for myself nearly impossible.

My body responded to my new environment by shedding 50 pounds, but even then I knew my weight loss wasn’t healthy. My stress had reached a peak, and all I could do was shrink in the face of it. I had no time for physical activity, and if I was lucky enough to get a day off, I was too depleted to move anyways. The stuff I devoured could scarcely be called food; I feed quick meals rife with saturated fats and sodium that just made me more sluggish. Research backs this up: stressful tasks lead to poor eating, junk food makes us depressed and failing mental health becomes a roadblock to improving health.

I bristled whenever someone congratulated me on my weight loss. To accept outsiders’ compliments on my weight loss was to betray the body-positive ethos I had adopted.

And then, just as easily as I had adopted it, I threw that life away. Less than a year into my first full-time job, I discontinue to travel Europe for five months. Suddenly, I had a limitless resource of something I hadn’t had my entire working life: time. I could expend all day walking, climbing or hiking in a different country. I could stroll through local marketplaces, relishing the hues and odors of the displayed fruits and vegetables, to pick foods that induced me happy and gave me the energy I needed to keep exploring. Regular physical activity, a Mediterranean-style diet and liberty to do as I pleased altered me, and I lost another 60 lb.

When I came back home to the US, my family and friends were shocked by my dramatic transformation and my weight loss was only part of it. Yes, I was smaller, but I also seemed happier. I was more confident and said stuff like:” You know what would be so fun right now? A bike ride .” I even got a cool haircut. My new body was a reflection of the new life I was living.

One of the biggest alters my friends noticed is how experimental and colorful my manner sense had now become, are comparable to when all I wore was an ensemble of leggings and a T-shirt. Being more confident assists, but buying cool clothes is just easier the less fat you are. Albeit I’m still a solid sizing 14, but the realm of possibilities for my wardrobe has vastly expanded from the ironically slim size-2 0-and-up rack I used to shop from. I can set more care into my appearance and feel more secure in the way I present myself to the world because I actually have options.

There’s just one thing, though. My new commitment to health has also bordered on obsession at times. I don’t want to fall back on my old habits, so I pore over the ingredients in everything I eat. I work out regularly, sometimes to the point I can barely move my muscles the next day. And when I can’t bring myself to push my limits again- only one extra define of crunches or lunges- I feel like I’m failing myself.

Maybe getting healthier has made me happier, but being so preoccupied with health can be my downfall. Orthorexia, ailment eating influenced by an preoccupation with “healthy” foods, is one symptom of the larger problem diet culture was born from. Being perfect is a never-ending game of moving goalposts, and we’re compelled to spend the rest of our lives chasing after it.

I’m still plus sizing, but I have become a more” socially acceptable” fat girl worth catering to. For once, I feel like my body has the right to exist because there’s less room for me to take up. Is that anything to be happy about? All I know is that I own a pair of jeans that fit, and I’ll stop to admire my reflection when I wear them.

Read more: www.theguardian.com