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There’s a chance you won’t find Santa Claus eating any of the cookies under the Christmas tree this year. If he’s like many men, he’ll be pulling the sleigh himself to try to build up his muscles.
According to a recent study by the journal Preventive Medicine, men are working out nearly twice as much as women.
Jason Greenspan, the founder of New York’s Practical Fitness & Wellness, claims that the increase might be due to younger men in the 18-40 age bracket trying to compensate for not looking like the men they see on screens big and small.
Call it the Channing Tatum effect.
Once Mr. Magic Mike started flashing and thrusting his hefty package, citywide fitness hubs like SLT Yoga in Midtown started noticing more men in their group exercise classes, which are typically dominated by women.
“The ladies love Channing Tatum, and that guy is jacked,” says Nick Rizzo, a 27-year-old writer from Bed-Stuy.
Ah, so it’s really all about pleasing the ladies . . .
Rex Chatterjee, a 26-year-old fitness pro from Hell’s Kitchen claims, “Every 20-something guy that has ever come to me for help in building muscle, whether he’s fat or skinny, introvert or extrovert, has done so at least in part, if not entirely, to attract women.”
Men’s Health piled on the pressure with this advice: “If you’ve got the beginnings of a gut, any discriminating woman will think twice before considering you boyfriend material.”
They’re not the only outlet telling men to work on their abs. Upper East Side matchmaker Janis Spindel says, “If you’re a smart guy, you can be short, bald, but you still can’t be fat. Do you have to be buff with a ripped six-pack? It’s hotter. If you want a girl with model looks, yeah, buddy, you’d better be buff. Hit the gym.”
What happened to having a good old sense of humor? Isn’t it more impressive to make a gut shake with laughter than to bounce a penny off it?
To find out, we went straight to the source: beautiful women.
Turns out that while there’s nothing wrong with hitting the gym and developing a taste for protein shakes, buff-ness isn’t the turn-on men believe it to be.
“I already have to listen to my girlfriends complain about their bodies, do I really want my boyfriend telling me the nutritional information of the greasy burger I am eating?” asks Courtney Steers, a 26-year-old Education Consultant from the Upper West side.
Even women who are “jacked” themselves say it’s not the first quality they look for in a partner.
Jen Dziura, a 33-year-old former bodybuilder from the Financial District who introduced her boyfriend to working out sparingly, claims, “It’s best if only one person treats their body like a science project.”
Wray Serna, a 29-year-old designer from Williamsburg, agrees: “I like to reach around and grab the gut during a good spoon. It’s comforting. That’s who I want to be with late in the evening after dinner, not a carved-from-stone type.”
So, a guy who can spoon in bed, and use a spoon to eat ice cream.
But what about Channing Tatum and his rippling muscles?
Elizabeth Nolan Brown, a 30-year-old blogger from Bushwick, scoffs, “Channing Tatum looks like a potato.” Hear that, Santa? We’ll make your cookies extra naughty this year.