Ah yes, the “You want me? What the hell’s wrong with you?” syndrome. Been there.
My hair fell out when I was 19, and I started wearing hats constantly. When I was 21, a friend set me up with a woman and things went very well at first. But when the hat came off, she shrieked and ran. Since then, I burn with envy for men with full heads of hair. It must be so wonderful…
It’s fascinating that so many anecdotes of successful bald men involve the British (Jason Statham, Patrick Stewart) or guys taking steroids (The Rock, Vin Diesel). Such specific categories.
DesertWife claimed 5’11" but it was closer to six-feet. She said when she was in college circa 1960 she would have loved slow dancing with someone whose head was higher than her boobs but the taller men preferred the shorter girls leaving only the shorties for the Amazons.
I joined what was supposed to be a standard neighbourhood gym but as partners dropped out became body builder central. The guys and I were pretty uneasy at first but in time this flabby old dyke became mother confessor and I had free training in exchange for chats and company everyday for 18 months or so. In terms of body image the blokes were as bad as the teenage girls I went to school with decades before. They could never quite get where they wanted to be and there were quite a number of hospitalisations due to food issues as well. My psychiatrist found it all fascinating second hand.
We can see young women with anorexia fade away and see the issue, the ‘beautiful’ young man is likely doing just as much damage and we put him on the cover of men’s health. They were anything but healthy.
Bigorexia(2005)
Exactly, I was coming off 2 years off weightloss, we all knew the calorie and macronutrient make up of everything. A mobile DEXA scan came by every couple of months so they all knew their exact fat percentages and we all showed up early Christmas morning for a giant cardio session before the scary feasting… It was the most unhealthy environment I’ve ever been in and I used to be a junkie, there were more drugs in the gym… Glorious fun of course until the great falling out that goups of people with only demons in common will inevitably have.
Men aren’t immune.
In my teens, I had health issues and I was scrawny. But I had body dysmorphia and was not aware just how skinny I looked - I worried about my belly. When I went off to college and came back to visit, one of my teachers commented that I looked so much healthier. Whereas I just noticed the flabby belly. But now I look at my high school graduation pictures and cringe.
As my health issues have shifted, I stopped being too skinny and now I’m overweight. I would like to lose 50 lbs or so, and I actually was down a bit, but it’s a struggle.
Also, I’m hairy. Not only my chest and legs, but my shoulders and back as well. And ears. Fuzzy earlobes are not that common. It makes me more self-conscious when going swimming and the like. (I mean the back hair, not the fuzzy ears.) But I have had the experience of women being interested despite or even because of the hair, so that helps shift my mindset a little.
I’ve never been happy with my face. It is wide and round, not chiseled. I wish I looked more like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, but I feel I’m more blobby. I have been told that I’m a very attractive man, but it is hard to believe because it doesn’t match my perception.
Fortunately I’m not short (;)) and I have a full head of hair. Like, really full. Though it has a tendency to just droop into a helmet if I don’t style it with gel. And I think I look younger than my actual age. Just wish I felt as young as I look. 
I have never really wanted to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger or the bulked up body builders pushing testosterone pills. I have nice legs, my arms could be better, but I don’t care enough to work that hard at it. But I can appreciate the fantasy of looking more like Hugh Jackman or Chris Evans or Chris Hemsworth.
When I was in high school, I thought my shoulders were too broad, my jaw too chiseled, my facial hair too thick, and my thighs and butt too blocky and muscular. I also couldn’t understand why so many straight women and gay men had crushes on me, and why I found it so easy to get laid.
I ended up transitioning. 
To make a sweeping generalization, I think there has been a marked shift in the way men think about their bodies over the past 30 or 40 years. Several generations ago, younger men thought about the way they looked in terms of how to attract the person they were interested in. But now, I think there is a much more heightened sense that their bodies are being scrutinized all the time, not necessarily just by people interested in them sexually, but by society as a whole (ie, the way women have felt all along).
My sense is that younger guys are much more self-conscious about their bodies than they used to be. And, as has been said, the “ideal” male body has changed radically. If you look at 1970s movie stars like Paul Newman or Robert Redford, they were in shape but not ridiculously in shape. You could kind of look like them. That’s not true any more.
Personally, I don’t do a lot of comparisons to models/actors/athletes, because I would have to devote my entire being to radically changing my eating habits and workout regime to approach many of them. I’m just not that interested. My wife thinks I’m attractive, I can do most of the physical activities I’m interested in, and I don’t need radical tailoring to find clothes that I look good in.
Having said that, I am definitely self-conscious about the way I look, mostly around my upper body. I have a bit of a belly (not outrageous), but it’s exacerbated by being a little hyperlordotic. In addition, I have pectus excavatum (though not as severe as the photo in the article) with just a touch of gynecomastia for good measure, and relatively skinny arms. If there’s a saving grace, it’s that I have a fair amount of chest hair that can mask a little of all this. The point being, I am very uncomfortable with others seeing me without a shirt on. I’m getting better about it, but you should see how fast I can get out of my t-shirt and into my wetsuit on a dive boat. 
Yeah and this is an interesting observation, maybe worthy of its own thread.
You can walk through any city and see hundreds of women as toned as a female film star. Many much better toned in fact.
But male film stars now have to routinely “hulk out” for roles. So in most cities it would only be the very small number of men that train intensively and very frequently that could match film stars for muscle mass, and even most of those guys wouldn’t have the clearly-defined six pack.
If a couple go to watch a marvel movie together, the man might remark that his partner looks as sexy as the women on the screen.
The woman might need to change the subject 
On the other hand, there are many more character roles available for men who are not attractive. So not being good-looking facially is less of a big deal for male actors than female.
And there is at least one form of media where both the men and women have unrealistic body proportions: porn.
I wish I had more hair and was a little thinner, but mostly I’m content with how I look. I get sufficient exercise, don’t smoke, don’t do drugs, never drink to excess and usually eat healthily. I’m never going to be Hollywood handsome and, now being in my mid-50s, don’t care to put in the effort to get totally buff. So no, I can’t say I obsess over my body image.