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How Do You Personally Cultivate Body Positivity As A Man

MENSXP May 07, 2025 11:39 PM

Ah! The “boon” of being the supporting character in your own story is something we don’t talk enough about.

If I ask you, do you want to be the second lead or a supporting character in a movie, most of you are likely to say “No”, but a man who has not yet accepted his body might repel main character energy from miles.

So what happens then? You become the second lead by default. You have a friend who has less experience than you, who hasn’t evolved as much as you have but he’s still the main character, not just in his story, but in your story too. Why? Because you don’t feel like a hero.

You feel like your clothes don’t fit you right. You feel like it’s okay for you to wear torn, unpolished shoes. An unkempt beard is okay for you. You feel like your thighs are too thin or perhaps a certain amount of fat always bulges out of your pants around the waist. So you haven’t felt like a hero yet.

Whose responsibility is it, though?

I’m certain your Instagram feed has blessed you with at least some of the viral reels that neither match your standards nor the content you consume on a regular basis. I’m specifically talking about the ones which feature a super lean guy dancing to dhol or a cringey song with the confidence of a king. Or a groomwho looks like Jack Skellington showing a tantrum while the bride feeds him a laddoo (it also happens the other way around, we’re not discussing gender here).

When you go through the comment sections of such reels, you realise how many men want this confidence level. But what’s different? If I had to take a guess, I’d say people. It’s the people around you who consciously or subconsciously praise or degrade you. It slowly builds up your personality, we all know that.

So if people started treating you better, now. Saying wonderful things about your looks. You think you’d finally start feeling like a hero of at least your story?

One of my brothers tried it. In the last year, he changed his appearance. He worked really hard for the love of his health and looks and dressed up like Shah Rukh and Diljit on the Met Gala 2025’s red carpet throughout his sister’s wedding.

After learning to do things that are good for his body, he was well aware that he looked good, rather great. So when people came to him with their two cents, it didn’t matter.

Now that he has climbed up a level, he knows how he looks, he knows how he wants his body to look and feel like, it hardly matters how many relatives stare at him, do black magic on him (jk), make fun of him or love him.

It’s not an easier said than done case here. It is being said because it has been done.

But the bigger question is…

Should you accept your body as is or push it and demand more from it?

“You must love your body”

They say.

But how do you love a body that brings you pain most of the time?

Think of it as shopping - “I love this suit. So now I’ll get the money to buy it, if I feel it needs altering, I’ll get that done.”

Think of it as a lasting relationship - “I love this person. So now that I have them, I’ll invest more in things that make us feel good.”

Loving your body unconditionally wouldn’t look like “My body is craving sweets, so let me order a box of gulab jamun.”

It would look something like “I can’t live without gehun ki roti, but gluten causes inflammation, so I’ll stick to amarnath and buckwheat chapatis.”

You love a car, you take good care of it. Do the same with your body. You want to look good in all the trending outfits; let that be your motivation. Whatever works.

When you take charge of giving your body what’s good for it as opposed to what it craves, you truly understand the meaning of treating your body like a temple. This only happens when you’ve accepted your body and its problems as is. Get naked in front of the mirror, look at your body. See it. Accept it. Admire it.

“Exercising self-compassion is not the opposite of exercising self-improvement; they're fundamentally linked. Hating your body isn't actually a good motivator to change. You know why? Because hate is experienced in the moment, and change takes a long time,” says a Reddit user.

“It's much better to work to accept how you look at present, and then conceive of exercising and eating well as improvements on something that's already good,” says another one.

“I make sure I regularly see images of a wide range of bodies, especially bodies that look like my own and bodies that are otherwise marginalized (extra especially bodies of fat people, people with visible disabilities, people of color, and trans people). The more kinds of bodies you see regularly, the more kinds of bodies you can appreciate the inherent beauty in,” a strategy that worked of one of the users.

Another user explained pretty logically, “Your body is just a meat vehicle for your soul. One day it will be dust. Keep it fed, keep it fit enough for your lifestyle, rest it up when it needs it.

“I mean, I have nothing against jacked-up, it's cool and all, like a Lamborghini, but like a Lambo, it can be expensive to keep it that way, and often unpractical (and unhealthy!) unless you're a medieval blacksmith or something.”

So, do you need to push your body to change? That’s up to you. That’s up to how you feel. If you feel your body is in a healthy state, it doesn’t hinder your daily tasks, we’re all up for body positivity.

For a lot of us, we want to look like Hrithik Roshan to feel like Hrithik Roshan and that’s not wrong either. Everyone deserves the taste of a smooth-functioning, disease-free, healthy body. Pick those dumbbells, pick up dancing or be determined when it comes to your anti-inflammatory diet. It’s a long journey but the path is all yours to walk on. The end goal is to become the hero of your own story. However, how you reach that state of mind is your choice.