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Research on adolescents obsessing over their appearance has historically focused on girls, but there is growing recognition among licensed professional counselors that boys face their own challenges. Like their adult male counterparts, many adolescent boys have been socialized to suppress their full range of emotions. More recently, they are being influenced to pay special attention to their appearance and attractiveness to gain social attention, often using extreme and dangerous methods.  

Exposure to increasingly extreme social media content is encouraging adolescent boys to engage in harmful behaviors. ‘Softmaxxing’ includes intense gym workouts and strict dieting, sometimes using inappropriate products. Similarly, ‘looksmaxxing’ refers to excessively focusing on modifying one’s appearance using tactics such as plastic surgery, dental surgery or breaking bones to enhance physical looks to attain a narrow, often unobtainable body ideal. This can start as self-improvement but, for some boys, can grow into something much more harmful.

Social Pressure on Mental Health

Many adolescent boys feel pressure to attract a partner and to be popular among their peers, stressing the importance of status and not relationship connection. For those unable to meet these criteria and fit into status cliques, they can feel like outsiders and harbor feelings of loneliness and rejection. 

Couple this peer pressure with societal dogma that boys should be raised to be tough and hide their vulnerable feelings, adolescent boys often have fewer outlets to express their pain and confusion. These cultural biases and their effects on adolescent boys have often gone unexamined and can sometimes lead to violence, suicide and poor educational achievements. More research needs to be done on the underlying cause and effect related to male socialization. 

Building Emotionally Safe Spaces

Counseling experts advise that boys need help managing their emotions, while societal messaging suggests that they ignore those emotions. Parents can be deliberate in fostering a healthy emotional environment for their adolescent boys. To do so, many parents must themselves become vigilant and educate themselves about their boys’ online activities and engagement. The key is not to ban boys from digital spaces or tell them to stay offline, but rather to help them feel able to ask for support when they have questions or are struggling. 

Here are some tips: 

• Acknowledge that boys may feel social pressure to conform to certain body ideals to engage in helpful conversations rather than leaving the body image guidance to influencers.
• Understand the unique struggles adolescent boys experience and establish healthy ways of expression by setting examples at home and providing healthy outlets.
• Establish healthy boundaries around screen time and internet use.

Special thanks to Matt Englar-Carlson, PhD, professor of counseling at California State University Fullerton and the director at the Center for Boys and Men.