Looking good is a guy thing

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer

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Honolulu lawyer Roger Hoffman figures he's like most men when it comes to thinking about his body: "The bottom line is we all want to be in the shape like we were back in high school."

At Punahou, Hoffman was a 165-pound swimmer and water polo player. All through college and law school, he stayed pretty much the same, "the best shape of my life." Once he entered the work world, though, priorities changed; he ate more, exercised less.

Last year, nearing age 35, he was well over 200 pounds.

"I decided it was now or never," he said. "If I didn't change the way I eat and my approach to living, I never would."

Today, he works out on a Stairmaster nearly every day at Clark Hatch, a downtown fitness center; he has changed his eating habits and constantly battles the urge to break out the brownies and Doritos. He lost 20 to 25 pounds, and hovers between 190 and 193.

He's still working on the next threshold: getting back to his high school shape.

Hoffman's story is mirrored by tens of thousands of men in Hawai'i every day. At home, in health clubs, spas, plastic surgery centers, hair loss clinics or cosmetic dental offices, men today are every bit as worried about keeping their bodies looking good as women, according to doctors, psychologists and others who try to help them accomplish that.

One recent study of college-age men in the United States, Austria and France reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry indicated that men want — and believe that women prefer — a body with at least 27 more pounds of muscle than they possess.

Another study found about one in four men in the healthy weight range believe themselves to be fat, while 17 percent of men are on a weight loss diet at any given time. Men account for about 10 percent of all eating disorder cases in America.

In fact, it's estimated that about 45 to 55 percent of Western men are unhappy with their bodies to some degree, compared with only 15 percent some 25 years ago.

In 1997, the most recent year for which full figures are available, American men spent $3 billion on grooming aids and fragrances, $800 million on hair transplants and $400 million on hair pieces.

According to the new book "Looking Good: Male Body Image in Modern America," men spend almost $400 million a year on cosmetic surgery, and $35 million on facelifts. An estimated 85 million American men practice some sort of weight training to improve the looks of their body.

"Why shouldn't men want to look better," asks Don Parsa, a Honolulu plastic surgeon who says men have become an increasing part of his business in the past 10 years. "Why shouldn't men have nice hair styling, nice shirts, jewelry? Why shouldn't they be able to use plastic surgery or hair transplants to look and feel better?"

The desire to look better and feel healthy go hand-in-hand for many men.

"Health and image fit together," said Mark Brakke, an independent distributor of weight loss and health products in Hawai'i. "My experience is that younger men want to look good, but maybe when they get married and content with a beautiful wife, they let themselves go a little. Later on, they get worried about their health and nutrition."

Brakke said he didn't get worried about those things until he hit 40.

"I didn't care about nutrition at all," he said. "I did fast food all the time. Athletically I looked fine, but I didn't want to be somebody who ends up having a heart attack or a stroke by age 45. When I started learning about nutrition, I realized what 40 years of bad food can do to you. That was my revelation."

Fitness guru Clark Hatch, who operates a nationwide chain of fitness centers, says that's typical of the men he sees coming into his downtown gym for the first time.

"Men typically don't become concerned until they are in their 30s or 40s," he said. "Up until then they accept the changes as a natural process, but women are fighting it all the way to the beauty parlor. Woman worry about their faces, but are more concerned about their bodies from the face down. It comes on so slowly for them. They may have put on 20 or 30 pounds before they take an inventory and realize they've got to start exercising again."

These days, though, it's not just enough for men to be healthy. There are social and economic pressures to look good, too.

"Woman are still more likely to get something done about their appearance," said Gilbert Ing, who runs the Smile Enhancement Gallery in Kailua. "Men take a little more pushing, usually from a woman. But now men are starting to get the same type of pressure to look better that woman have had for a long time. The way businesses are run these days, if you don't have a nice smile, you can lose out financially."

Hair loss, a bulging body, a poor smile and other cosmetic problems all can have economic impact on a man's career, according to Ing and other professionals.

"As far as purely cosmetic surgery, nobody absolutely needs to have it done," Ing said. "Strictly speaking, a facelift is not necessary. But when you talk about self-image, there are economic and social reasons that can make one worthwhile. You have to decide how much something is worth to you."

"What we're talking about is a desire to fit in, to look normal," said Gregory Herbich, a cosmetic surgeon. "Life's not fair. Looks do fade. In order to be successful in business or every day life, there's a desire to maintain the looks that you had in the past."

Or, as Steve Smith, a 50-year-old computer administrator from Makiki who recently had the wide gaps in his teeth fixed, says: "Nobody is worried about looking good when they're 80."

"It's such a competitive world out there and the older you get the more you want to have an advantage," Smith said. "The first thing people look at are your shoes and then your teeth. It's how they judge you."

Jonathan Okabe, a Honolulu dentist specializing in cosmetic and restorative dentistry, said many of his male patients come to him with a physical problem, then decide to have cosmetic improvements, too.

"There's a whole new philosophy, driven by the baby boomers, that says if you're going to have to fix something, you may as well make it look nice, too. That's where the men in my practice are coming from," he said.

"Absolutely," agreed Mike Giddings, 46, a Honolulu airline pilot who recently underwent a full mouth restoration treatment done by Okabe. "My problem was 100 percent mechanical. Since I was very young, my bite was all wrong. I didn't even know how out of kilter it was. Getting it fixed was more for health reasons than image, but looking a lot better — that's just extra gravy on the plate."

Parsa said most of the men seeking plastic surgery fall into two categories: the young men who want to look attractive for themselves (and for women), and the older men, those in their 40s and 50s, who are worried about their economic well-being.

Patients in their 20s and 30s usually are more concerned about their own image, he said. Often, they ask for liposuction or other surgery because they see a spreading stomach or love handles as a sign of aging.

"Usually my first recommendation to them is to go exercise more and to get on a healthy diet," he said. "Often that's all they need. If they still need help, then we can do a better job with surgery down the road."

The older group has more concerns about the economic affects of aging, he said.

"There's a changing business psychology out there," he said. "There's an emphasis on hiring and promoting younger men."

That type of pressure has more men seeking tummy tucks, hair implants, nose jobs, eyelid surgery and, especially, a cure for hair loss.

"Hair is the most obvious way a man is judged when he meets someone new," said Alan Johnson, a University of Hawai'i psychology professor and owner of Ultra Discount Hair treatment center in downtown Honolulu.

Johnson discovered the business as a middle-aged, balding, divorced man who "wanted my life back."

"A lot of woman say they don't care about a man's hair, but that's the type of lies people tell. Most woman prefer the masculine look of vitality that a full head of hair offers," he said.

Johnson said hair loss products are a billion-dollar-a-year business for a good reason.

"Businesses, private lives, social lives all turn around. A person's attitude changes, and then their life gets better — all because they look better. Life isn't fair; the people who look better really do succeed in business and personally more than others," he said.

Honolulu actor John Fleenor, whose hair began receding when he was still a teenager, is convinced that his hair treatment with Johnson has helped him professionally and personally.

"With hair, I feel like I'm 20 years younger and much healthier," Fleenor said. "Professionally all my favorite stars seem to have great hair, so I think it helps to look good, too."

One of the reasons more men are turning to such treatments is simply because they can.

"The technology to do these things has only become available in the last five or 10 years," Okabe said. "And the knowledge to use it is just now becoming more widespread."