Samuel Beckett's trilogy and the revolution of the body in Vichy France

This essay explores the depiction of the degenerating male form in Samuel Beckett’s post-World War II trilogy of novels (Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable) in the context of Vichy France’s ideology of the body—specifically the male body—and the propaganda of the regime’s Révolution nationale, which Beckett would have encountered in wartime France. Read with this historical situation in mind, this essay argues that Beckett’s move from the limping Molloy to the bed-bound Malone and finally to the physically limbless figure of The Unnamable gives expression to a reality of physical deterioration that is unique to the degenerating body, a reality that also inverts the ideal of physical perfection that regimes such as Vichy produced. Analyzed in this way, Beckett’s work can be seen to aggravate and challenge both Vichy’s idolization of the strong, athletic male form and the ways in which Vichy and other midcentury ideologies produced narratives of the body steeped in a narrow and ultimately violent essentialism

The head-body weight and head-body length relationship of Synodontis schall (Bloch and Schneider 1801) in Asa Lake, Ilorin, Nigeria

A total of 710 specimens of Synodontis schall were analyzed for the head body weight and head body length relationship. The head constituted 40% of the total body weight and 30% of the total body length. The mean head weight for male and female computed was 23.90g and 29.13g respectively. Head weight in both male and female was significantly different (P0.05). Fat accumulation in the body tissue was prominent in the females than males usually before the breeding season. The significance of the cephalo-nuchal shield in the bony head of Synodontis species compared with some other catfishes in the lake was also discusse

Female impersonation as an alternative reproductive strategy in giant cuttlefish

Out of all the animals, cephalopods possess an unrivalled ability to change their shape and body patterns. Our observations of giant cuttlefish (Sepia apama) suggest this ability has allowed them to evolve alternative mating strategies in which males can switch between the appearance of a female and that of a male in order to foil the guarding attempts of larger males. At a mass breeding aggregation in South Australia, we repeatedly observed single small males accompanying mating pairs. While doing so, the small male assumed the body shape and patterns of a female. Such males were never attacked by the larger mate-guarding male. On more than 20 occasions, when the larger male was distracted by another male intruder, these small males, previously indistinguishable from a female, were observed to change body pattern and behaviour to that of a male in mating display. These small males then attempted to mate with the female, often with success. This potential for dynamic sexual mimicry may have played a part in driving the evolution of the remarkable powers of colour and shape transformation which characterize the cephalopods

Body shape preferences: Associations with rater body shape and sociosexuality

Copyright @ 2013 Price et al.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.There is accumulating evidence of condition-dependent mate choice in many species, that is, individual preferences varying in strength according to the condition of the chooser. In humans, for example, people with more attractive faces/bodies, and who are higher in sociosexuality, exhibit stronger preferences for attractive traits in opposite-sex faces/bodies. However, previous studies have tended to use only relatively simple, isolated measures of rater attractiveness. Here we use 3D body scanning technology to examine associations between strength of rater preferences for attractive traits in opposite-sex bodies, and raters' body shape, self-perceived attractiveness, and sociosexuality. For 118 raters and 80 stimuli models, we used a 3D scanner to extract body measurements associated with attractiveness (male waist-chest ratio [WCR], female waist-hip ratio [WHR], and volume-height index [VHI] in both sexes) and also measured rater self-perceived attractiveness and sociosexuality. As expected, WHR and VHI were important predictors of female body attractiveness, while WCR and VHI were important predictors of male body attractiveness. Results indicated that male rater sociosexuality scores were positively associated with strength of preference for attractive (low) VHI and attractive (low) WHR in female bodies. Moreover, male rater self-perceived attractiveness was positively associated with strength of preference for low VHI in female bodies. The only evidence of condition-dependent preferences in females was a positive association between attractive VHI in female raters and preferences for attractive (low) WCR in male bodies. No other significant associations were observed in either sex between aspects of rater body shape and strength of preferences for attractive opposite-sex body traits. These results suggest that among male raters, rater self-perceived attractiveness and sociosexuality are important predictors of preference strength for attractive opposite-sex body shapes, and that rater body traits -with the exception of VHI in female raters- may not be good predictors of these preferences in either sex.This study is funded by the Brunel University School of Social Sciences and made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund

Men fear other men most: Gender specific brain activations in perceiving threat from dynamic faces and bodies. An fMRI study.

We report a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment showing different activation patterns as a function of threatening signals from facial or bodily expressions and these differed between male and female participants as a function of male and female actors. Male observers showed a clear motor preparation response to threatening male body language

Orthorexia nervosa and self-attitudinal aspects of body image in female and male university students.

The present study was designed to investigate orthorexia nervosa, or the phenomenon of being preoccupied with consuming healthy food. Specific aims were to explore relationships between orthorexia features and attitudes towards body image, fitness and health in normal weight female and male university students with high levels of healthy food preoccupation, i.e. orthorexia nervosa. METHODS Participants were 327 female (N = 283) and male (N = 44) students aged 18 to 25 years. All participants completed the Polish adaptation of the 15-item questionnaire assessing orthorexia eating behaviours (the ORTHO-15) and the Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire (the MBSRQ). Relationships between scores on the ORTHO-15 and MBSRQ were explored in the 213 students who had high levels of preoccupation with a healthy food intake (68.55% women and 43.18% men, respectively). RESULTS: There were no statistically significant differences in the levels of orthorexia behaviours between females and males. In female students with orthorexia nervosa, preoccupation with consuming healthy food was significantly correlated with the MBSRQ subscale scores for overweight preoccupation, appearance orientation, fitness orientation, health orientation, body areas satisfaction and appearance evaluation. Conversely, in male students with orthorexia nervosa there were no correlations between orthorexic behaviours and the MBSRQ subscales. In female students with orthorexia nervosa multivariable linear regression analysis found high body areas (parts) satisfaction, low fitness orientation, low overweight preoccupation and low appearance orientation were independent predictors of greater fixation on eating healthy food. In male students, we found that aspects of body image were not associated with preoccupation with healthy eating. CONCLUSION: A strong preoccupation with healthy and proper food was not associated with an unhealthy body-self relationship among Polish female student with orthorexia nervosa

Estimation of body density in adolescent athletes

National samples of 141 male and 133 female highly-trained adolescent athletes were studied to derive anthropometric-based equations predicting body density. Anthropometric measures included skinfold thicknesses at seven sites, circum- ferences at 14 sites, and diameters at nine sites. Criterion measures of body density were determined by underwater weighing with corrections for residual lung vol- ume based on the oxygen dilution method. Variable selection procedures included factor analysis followed by forward-stepping regression and polynomial analysis. For both the male and female samples, two quadratic equations utilizing either the sum of three or seven skinfold measures were derived. Within the male sample, high validity coefficients (R = 0.81 - 0.82) and low standard errors (SEE = 0.0055 - 0.0056 g-ml !) were shown with these equations. Similar results were demon- strated with the equations for females (R = 0.82 and SEE = 0.0060 g-ml~ l). Cross- validation on independent samples of male (n = 66) and female (n = 46) adolescent athletes further confirmed these findings. In the cross-validation sample of males, predicted scores were highly correlated with actual body density (r = 0.86 - 0.87) and the total error of prediction ranged from 0.0057 to 0.0061 g-ml~ l. Among the females, these values were r = 0.82 - 0.83 and total error = 0.0058 to 0.0063 g*ml-1. These results indicate that within reasonable limits of error, the sum of three or seven skinfolds may be used to make estimates of the body density of adolescent male or female athlete

Body Talk: Male Athletes Reflect on Sport, Injury, and Pain

This paper examines how participation in physically demanding sport, with its potential and actual injurious outcomes, both challenges and reinforces dominant notions of masculinity. Data from 16 in-depth interviews with former and current Canadian adult male athletes indicate that sport practices privileging forceful notions of masculinity are highly valued, and that serious injury is framed as a masculinizing experience. It is argued that a generally unreflexive approach to past disablement is an extraordinary domain feature of contemporary sport. The risks associated with violent sport appear to go relatively unquestioned by men who have suffered debilitating injury and whose daily lives are marked by physical constraints and pain

Associations between body dissatisfaction and self-reported anxiety and depression in otherwise healthy men: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Introduction It is unknown whether male body dissatisfaction is related to anxiety and depression. This study investigates whether there is an association between body dissatisfaction and self-reported anxiety and/or depression in otherwise healthy adult males. Method A systematic review was conducted using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analyses as the reporting guideline. Four databases including CINAHL complete, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, MEDLINE and PsycINFO were searched for observational studies with a correlational design. Studies were appraised using the Appraisal tool for Cross-Sectional Studies to measure quality and risk of bias. Data were extracted from studies to analyse and synthesise findings using content analysis and random effects meta-analyses in male body dissatisfaction and anxiety, depression, and both anxiety and depression. Results Twenty-three cross-sectional studies were included in the review. Nineteen studies found positive correlations between male body dissatisfaction and anxiety and/or depression. Meta-analyses of Pearson’s correlation coefficients found statistically significant associations with body satisfaction for anxiety 0.40 (95% CI 0.28 to 0.51) depression 0.34 (95% CI 0.22 to 0.45) and both anxiety and depression outcomes 0.47 (95% CI 0.33 to 0.59). The quality appraisal found study samples were homogeneous being mostly ascertained through academic institutions where participants were predominantly young, Caucasian and with relatively high educational attainment. Measures of body satisfaction focused predominantly on muscularity and thinness. Discussion This study provides the first pooled estimates of the correlation between body dissatisfaction and anxiety and depression in men. Findings need to be interpreted with respect to the samples and outcomes of the included studies. It is recommended that future research should increase the diversity of men in studies. Studies should measure a wider range of body dissatisfaction types found in men. Conclusion The findings demonstrate that an association between male body dissatisfaction and anxiety and depression is likely to exist. Future research should address the temporal relationship between body dissatisfaction and anxiety and depression