Messages about gender, bodies, and health on magazine covers [Activity]

This activity could be used in any course about gender, media, or bodies.  Before class, I conduct a search for magazine covers online from the current year (I use a Google Image search).  I use fitness and health magazines because I pair this activity with a reading about gendered fit body ideals (a chapter from Body Panic by Dworkin and Wachs*), however, any type of magazine could be utilized.  I usually use one cover from each of the following magazines: Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Muscle & Fitness, Fitness, Shape, and Self.

I put each image on its own PowerPoint slide and I also print out copies to hand out to groups of students: each group should have a different magazine cover (or set of covers) that they are responsible for describing to the rest of the class.

I ask students to identity what messages are communicated about gender on the magazine covers.  Of particular interest to my class are the body-related messages, the cover model, and the similarities and differences between magazines intended for men and magazines intended for women.

Students are often amused by this activity and surprised to see what we have been learning about reflected in magazines they actually might read.  This activity also gives students a chance to show off their mastery of the material and to teach one another.

Here are a few of the magazine covers I have used:

 

 

*I use the chapter "Size Matters: Male Body Panic and the Third Wave 'Crisis of Masculinity'" from Dworkin, Shari L. and Faye Linda Wachs. 2009. Body Panic: Gender, Health, and the Selling of Fitness. New York: New York University Press.