Abstract

CAMPANA, Angela Nogueira Neves Betanho  and  TAVARES, Maria da Consolação Gomes Cunha Fernandes. Drive for muscularity aspects among Physical Education undergraduate students. Rev. Bras. Educ. Fís. Esporte [online]. 2014, vol.28, n.2, pp.233-248. ISSN 1981-4690.  https://doi.org/10.1590/1807-55092014000200233.

Drive for Muscularity refers to the desire to achieve an ideal muscular body, as well the degree of concern that an individual can have about increasing muscle mass and the motivation to do so. The aim of this study was to contribute for the comprehension of drive for muscularity in the Brazilian cultural scenario, looking for beliefs, feelings and behaviours associated with this construct, in male physical education students. To generate the evidences, two focus groups, with five participants in each one, were conducted. Through the thematic decomposition were identified two main topics and five subtopics distributed between them: “it is important to be muscular”; “it is important to be enough muscular”; “the build of the muscular body”; “the price of being far from the muscular ideal” and “the price to achieve the muscular ideal”. We concluded that body appearance and function are important, those who appear to be strong must be capable of lift weights. The muscular enough body, with low body fat, is the one that is valued, either in the labor market. The most legitimate way to achieve the muscular body is through an ascetic routine of physical training, balanced diet and rest. Food supplements are acceptable additional resources. The use of anabolic steroids by those with unfavorable “genetic inheritance” is initially “forgiven”, but the body that results from this resource is a source of ambiguous feelings.

Keywords : Physical education; Males; Body image.

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