LIVING LARGE: Exploring Advertising Themes in Muscle & Fitness Magazine between 1987 and 2008.

"Remember that everybody starts somewhere, we all start skinny or fat or somewhere in between. But, basically we don't like the way we look now. Then you have the choice to do something about it. That's what the Weider System is all about, getting that body you want. So get off your can, and let's do it right now!"-Lee Labrada on Joe Weider, Founder ofMuscle and Fitness MagazineIntroductionFitness magazines can reflect society's ideals of the "perfect" body for both men and women. How big should your muscles be? Which Muscles should be large and which ones should be more defined? Which products will facilitate the achievement of these goals? In a society where our interest lays in fast improvements to one's body image, these are all questions that advertisements will address when trying to sell their products to people eager for the "quick fix".

This paper presents an historical content analysis of the advertisements found in Muscle and Fitness magazine.

"Get fat on Lorings Fat-ten-u and corpula foods"; ...

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We will provide sample advertisements taken from Muscle and Fitness that reflect a comparison of two magazine issues; one from 1987 and one from 2008. A variety of issues are examined in our analyses. These include: Are there any differences in the type of advertisements? Have the body image ideals changed from 1987? What kind of people are these advertisements targeting? A sub-analysis approach will be used to apply these questions to three categories we have assigned to the advertisements. The categories are: dietary supplements, equipment, and education. Furthermore, our study will address these questions using a qualitative sociological approach. This paper is broken down into four sections: theoretical underpinnings, methods, findings (descriptive and textual), and discussion of the findings.

Theoretical UnderpinningsReading the muscular body: A Critical Decoding of Advertisements in Flex MagazineWhite and Gillet argue that bodybuilding is...