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It is time for “real men” to wake up and help themselves solve a national health crisis, both of body and mind.
Physical Health
There is a silent health crisis among males nowadays. This crisis is not simply about 1)prostrate cancer or heart disease. It incorporates the poor health state of men in general and “real men” in particular.
Mortality statistics reveal the following problems:
Men lead in almost all of the top 15 causes of premature death.
Men have an average life expectancy that is at least five years shorter than that of women.
Men top the charts in such health hazards as smoking, drinking, dangerous jobs, sports injuries, drunk driving, and victims of violent crimes.
Joe Zoske, a health care consultant specializing in men’s health 2)opines, “Studies show this is due not to biology, but rather gender conditioning. In striving to be ‘real men,’ they live higher-risk lifestyles, driven by internalized messages of competition, invulnerability, control, emotional suppression, and independence, so when symptoms occur…—they have learned to not acknowledge them and 3)tough it out alone, leaving them isolated from information, interventions, and support. ”
“This waste of men and gender mind-set can no longer be justified by survival needs. Men are no longer hunters in our society.”
Yet boys are still taught to be tough, not cry, suppress emotions, and be strong at all costs. In fact, we teach our boy children that all of this is necessary to become a man.
4)Relating, nurturing, caring, listening, 5)fostering, allowing emotions, seeking medical aid and the like are for women. “Real men” are only allowed three emotions: humor, anger and sexual feelings.
According to Zoske, this male “code of masculinity” is internalized and becomes a script for a life of “stress, needless injury and illness, and an early grave.”
In addition, some men connect the life of a “real man” with a diet of meat, even including beef on a regular basis. Study after study has shown what a diet high in animal fats does to health.
Mental Health
Socially, single men seem to have it easier than single women. They can go to the local bar every night alone. It is always considered permissible for a man to ask a woman out. The world in general, and friends and 6)buds in particular, all try to be a matchmaker for the single man.
Why then do so many single men seem lonely? Lonely to the point of being self-destructive?
7)Rae Andre, Ph.D., in her book Positive Solitude: A Practical Program for Mastering Loneliness and Achieving Self-Fulfillment, writes that single men and women differ in the relationships they have with family and friends and in their tendency to feel isolation because of these relationships. Single men tend to be more isolated from their own families than do single women, and probably experience more loneliness.
In addition, the competitive nature of men sets them apart from other men. This often precludes a friendship close enough to help hold loneliness 8)at bay.
This loneliness is usually well hidden however. Few men feel able to acknowledge their loneliness and speak about it. If, on the rare occasions they do, it is invariably seen as personal failure, their fault, and their social inadequacy by much of society and often by the men themselves too.
According to 9)Gina Levete in her book 10)Letting Go of Loneliness, this inability to acknowledge and solve loneliness problems can result in harmful patterns of behavior in extreme cases. To prove they are one of the crowd, or to forget that they are not, drinking, gambling, drugs, and sex become addictive substitutes for some men which destructively cover up a sense of profound inner loneliness.
Men also hesitate to seek help professionally. How many lonely men with average-to-good circumstances make use of the 11)therapeutic or counseling support that is available? Not many, particularly if it is only to seek help for loneliness. In certain instances there is justification for such hesitancy. Not all professionals are sympathetic to the subject of loneliness. Although loneliness is acknowledged by many doctors to be a huge social problem, when male professionals refer to loneliness the examples cited are nearly always female.
This loneliness and feeling of apartness with other men sends more than one single man rushing back into marriage. When closeness with a woman and her nurturing abilities are the chief reasons for marriage, even if they are unconscious, men may be setting themselves up for another trip to the divorce courts and/or future physical problems.
And certainly marriage is no cure for loneliness. Unless people have an ability to reach out to another person emotionally, and many men in our society do not, marriage for them is a lonely place too.
Married men with successful, 12)vibrant careers, “real men” by anyone’s standards, often feel isolated and apart, even in marriage and family life. This is what a few had to say:
“My kids don’t talk to me the way they do to my wife. I feel excluded.”
“I always have to be the strong father-image and keep order in the house. Even when I am with my wife and kids, I often feel apart from them.”
“My wife and I have lots of friends. But they are really her friends and her friends’ husbands. Sometimes I feel apart from the whole group.”
“Ever since I was a child I have had this feeling of apartness. I had good parents and I have a wonderful wife. Why, I don’t know. I just feel apart from other people.”
Although changing male psychology is hard, and grows even harder as a man ages, our society must engage our husbands, sons, brothers, and partners in learning about their bodies, allowing health assessments, and generally improving lifestyles habits to give men the vitality and 13)longevity we think they deserve.
真男人”们是时候醒过来，帮自己解除身体和精神两方面的全国性健康危机了。
身体健康方面
当今，在男性当中流行着一种悄无声息的健康危机。这种危机不是简单地指前列腺癌或者心脏病。它包括一般男性，尤其是那些“真男人”们糟糕的身体状况。
死亡统计数据反映了以下的问题：
在导致壮年早逝的15个主要原因里，男人占的比重几乎都比女人大。
男人的平均寿命比女人至少短5年。
图表上显示，男人在吸烟、饮酒、从事危险工作、运动受伤、酒后驾驶以及成为暴力犯罪的受害者等健康风险方面居首位。
乔·佐斯科是一名保健顾问，专长是男性健康。他指出，“研究显示，男性健康危机并不是生理原因，而是社会性别规范造成的。为了努力成为‘真正的男人’，他们选择较高风险的生活方式，社会加于男性的期望——竞争性、无懈可击性、控制力、克制情感并且不依赖他人——已内化为他们的自我鞭策，所以当症状出现时，他们学会了否认其存在，并且独自忍受。这使他们孤立于资讯、干预和支持之外。”
“男人不必要的损耗以及固化的性别思维套路，已经不能再以生存需要为理由来开脱了。男人不再是我们这个社会的猎人。”
然而男孩子们依然被教育要坚韧，不能哭，要抑制情感，并且，无论花多大的代价都要成为强者。事实上，我们教育自己的儿子们：所有这些都是成为一个男人所必需的。
理解、教化、关怀、倾听、鼓励、可以情绪化、寻求医生的帮助，诸如此类的东西都留给了女人。“真正的男人”仅允许有三种情绪：幽默，愤怒和性感受。
根据佐斯科的研究，男性内化了这一套“阳刚法则”，于是它成为“压力、不必要的伤害、疾病以及早逝”这种人生的一个剧本。
另外，一些男人以为“真正的男人”的生活意味着大嚼肉食，甚至包括把牛肉当成日常食物。各种研究已反复显示，动物脂肪含量高的饮食会给健康带来巨大的危害。
精神健康方面
在社会上，单身男性似乎比单身女性生活得更加自在。他们可以每天晚上独自到当地的酒吧去。男人约会女人也永远是可以的。全社会，尤其是朋友和伙伴，都乐意为单身男性做媒。
那么为什么那么多的单身男性看似孤独？甚至孤独到出现自毁行为？
雷·安德烈博士在她的著作《积极的独处：克服孤独并自我完善的实用课程》里写道，由于单身男性和单身女性与家人朋友的关系不尽相同，因而他们感到孤立的倾向也不尽相同。比起单身女性，单身男性更容易觉得自己和家人疏远，因此可能体验到更多的孤独。
另外，男人爱竞争的天性使得自己和别的男人分离开来。这往往也妨碍男人结成足够亲密的友谊，来帮助他们排除孤独。
然而男人通常能很好地隐藏这种孤独。男人绝少能承认自己孤独，也绝少谈论自己的孤独。如果他们在极罕见的情况下这样做了，社会的大多数人，经常还包括当事人自己，都会无一例外地认为这是他们个人的失败、过错，是他们缺乏社交能力的结果。
根据吉娜·莱韦特在她《放开孤独》一书里的观点，在极端的个案里，无法承认并解决孤独问题可能导致有害的行为模式。为了证明他们是人群中的一员，或者忘记他们不是人群中的一员，酗酒、赌博、吸毒以及性行为成为一些男人沉湎其中的替代品，借以自毁性地掩藏内心深处的孤独感。
男人同样会犹豫是否该寻求专家的帮助。有多少生活环境达到中等水平以上的孤独男人，利用了他们可以获得的治疗或咨询服务？不是很多，特别是当男人们仅仅因为孤独而求助时。在某些情况下，这种犹豫是有道理的。并不是所有专家都会对孤独这个问题抱有同情。虽然很多医生承认孤独是一个很严重的社会问题，但是当男性专家提到孤独时，引用的几乎总是女性的个案。
这种孤独以及与别的男人隔离的感觉，使许多单身男人匆匆结婚。当某位女性带来的亲近感以及她抚慰的能力是结婚的主要原因时，那么即使男人没有意识到这一点，他也很可能最终走向离婚，以及/或者出现身体问题。
婚姻无疑不是孤独的解药。除非当事人有能力在情感上接近另一个人——我们社会中的很多男人都不能——否则婚姻对他们来说只是另一个孤独的处境而已。
事业成功而蓬勃地发展、用任何人的标准来评判都是“真正的男人”的已婚男人，常常感到孤立和隔离，甚至在婚姻及家庭生活中也是如此。以下是这样一些男人的肺腑之言：
“我的孩子不用和妻子说话的方式来和我说话。我感到被排斥。”
“我总是不得不树立强大的父亲形象，维持家里的秩序。即使当我和妻子、孩子们在一起时，我也经常觉得和他们隔得很远。”
“我妻子和我有很多朋友。但他们其实是她的朋友以及她朋友的丈夫。有时我觉得和整个群体格格不入。”
“我自幼就有孤独感。我有很好的父母和很棒的妻子。为什么会这样？我不知道。我只觉得和其他人聚不到一块儿。”
虽然很难改变男性的心理，而且随着他们年纪的增大，要改变他们就越难，但我们整个社会必须使我们的丈夫、儿子、兄弟以及伴侣认识他们的身体，接受健康评估，并改善总体的生活习惯，以便使男性获得我们认为他们应得的活力和长寿。
Physical Health
There is a silent health crisis among males nowadays. This crisis is not simply about 1)prostrate cancer or heart disease. It incorporates the poor health state of men in general and “real men” in particular.
Mortality statistics reveal the following problems:
Men lead in almost all of the top 15 causes of premature death.
Men have an average life expectancy that is at least five years shorter than that of women.
Men top the charts in such health hazards as smoking, drinking, dangerous jobs, sports injuries, drunk driving, and victims of violent crimes.
Joe Zoske, a health care consultant specializing in men’s health 2)opines, “Studies show this is due not to biology, but rather gender conditioning. In striving to be ‘real men,’ they live higher-risk lifestyles, driven by internalized messages of competition, invulnerability, control, emotional suppression, and independence, so when symptoms occur…—they have learned to not acknowledge them and 3)tough it out alone, leaving them isolated from information, interventions, and support. ”
“This waste of men and gender mind-set can no longer be justified by survival needs. Men are no longer hunters in our society.”
Yet boys are still taught to be tough, not cry, suppress emotions, and be strong at all costs. In fact, we teach our boy children that all of this is necessary to become a man.
4)Relating, nurturing, caring, listening, 5)fostering, allowing emotions, seeking medical aid and the like are for women. “Real men” are only allowed three emotions: humor, anger and sexual feelings.
According to Zoske, this male “code of masculinity” is internalized and becomes a script for a life of “stress, needless injury and illness, and an early grave.”
In addition, some men connect the life of a “real man” with a diet of meat, even including beef on a regular basis. Study after study has shown what a diet high in animal fats does to health.
Mental Health
Socially, single men seem to have it easier than single women. They can go to the local bar every night alone. It is always considered permissible for a man to ask a woman out. The world in general, and friends and 6)buds in particular, all try to be a matchmaker for the single man.
Why then do so many single men seem lonely? Lonely to the point of being self-destructive?
7)Rae Andre, Ph.D., in her book Positive Solitude: A Practical Program for Mastering Loneliness and Achieving Self-Fulfillment, writes that single men and women differ in the relationships they have with family and friends and in their tendency to feel isolation because of these relationships. Single men tend to be more isolated from their own families than do single women, and probably experience more loneliness.
In addition, the competitive nature of men sets them apart from other men. This often precludes a friendship close enough to help hold loneliness 8)at bay.
This loneliness is usually well hidden however. Few men feel able to acknowledge their loneliness and speak about it. If, on the rare occasions they do, it is invariably seen as personal failure, their fault, and their social inadequacy by much of society and often by the men themselves too.
According to 9)Gina Levete in her book 10)Letting Go of Loneliness, this inability to acknowledge and solve loneliness problems can result in harmful patterns of behavior in extreme cases. To prove they are one of the crowd, or to forget that they are not, drinking, gambling, drugs, and sex become addictive substitutes for some men which destructively cover up a sense of profound inner loneliness.
Men also hesitate to seek help professionally. How many lonely men with average-to-good circumstances make use of the 11)therapeutic or counseling support that is available? Not many, particularly if it is only to seek help for loneliness. In certain instances there is justification for such hesitancy. Not all professionals are sympathetic to the subject of loneliness. Although loneliness is acknowledged by many doctors to be a huge social problem, when male professionals refer to loneliness the examples cited are nearly always female.
This loneliness and feeling of apartness with other men sends more than one single man rushing back into marriage. When closeness with a woman and her nurturing abilities are the chief reasons for marriage, even if they are unconscious, men may be setting themselves up for another trip to the divorce courts and/or future physical problems.
And certainly marriage is no cure for loneliness. Unless people have an ability to reach out to another person emotionally, and many men in our society do not, marriage for them is a lonely place too.
Married men with successful, 12)vibrant careers, “real men” by anyone’s standards, often feel isolated and apart, even in marriage and family life. This is what a few had to say:
“My kids don’t talk to me the way they do to my wife. I feel excluded.”
“I always have to be the strong father-image and keep order in the house. Even when I am with my wife and kids, I often feel apart from them.”
“My wife and I have lots of friends. But they are really her friends and her friends’ husbands. Sometimes I feel apart from the whole group.”
“Ever since I was a child I have had this feeling of apartness. I had good parents and I have a wonderful wife. Why, I don’t know. I just feel apart from other people.”
Although changing male psychology is hard, and grows even harder as a man ages, our society must engage our husbands, sons, brothers, and partners in learning about their bodies, allowing health assessments, and generally improving lifestyles habits to give men the vitality and 13)longevity we think they deserve.
真男人”们是时候醒过来，帮自己解除身体和精神两方面的全国性健康危机了。
身体健康方面
当今，在男性当中流行着一种悄无声息的健康危机。这种危机不是简单地指前列腺癌或者心脏病。它包括一般男性，尤其是那些“真男人”们糟糕的身体状况。
死亡统计数据反映了以下的问题：
在导致壮年早逝的15个主要原因里，男人占的比重几乎都比女人大。
男人的平均寿命比女人至少短5年。
图表上显示，男人在吸烟、饮酒、从事危险工作、运动受伤、酒后驾驶以及成为暴力犯罪的受害者等健康风险方面居首位。
乔·佐斯科是一名保健顾问，专长是男性健康。他指出，“研究显示，男性健康危机并不是生理原因，而是社会性别规范造成的。为了努力成为‘真正的男人’，他们选择较高风险的生活方式，社会加于男性的期望——竞争性、无懈可击性、控制力、克制情感并且不依赖他人——已内化为他们的自我鞭策，所以当症状出现时，他们学会了否认其存在，并且独自忍受。这使他们孤立于资讯、干预和支持之外。”
“男人不必要的损耗以及固化的性别思维套路，已经不能再以生存需要为理由来开脱了。男人不再是我们这个社会的猎人。”
然而男孩子们依然被教育要坚韧，不能哭，要抑制情感，并且，无论花多大的代价都要成为强者。事实上，我们教育自己的儿子们：所有这些都是成为一个男人所必需的。
理解、教化、关怀、倾听、鼓励、可以情绪化、寻求医生的帮助，诸如此类的东西都留给了女人。“真正的男人”仅允许有三种情绪：幽默，愤怒和性感受。
根据佐斯科的研究，男性内化了这一套“阳刚法则”，于是它成为“压力、不必要的伤害、疾病以及早逝”这种人生的一个剧本。
另外，一些男人以为“真正的男人”的生活意味着大嚼肉食，甚至包括把牛肉当成日常食物。各种研究已反复显示，动物脂肪含量高的饮食会给健康带来巨大的危害。
精神健康方面
在社会上，单身男性似乎比单身女性生活得更加自在。他们可以每天晚上独自到当地的酒吧去。男人约会女人也永远是可以的。全社会，尤其是朋友和伙伴，都乐意为单身男性做媒。
那么为什么那么多的单身男性看似孤独？甚至孤独到出现自毁行为？
雷·安德烈博士在她的著作《积极的独处：克服孤独并自我完善的实用课程》里写道，由于单身男性和单身女性与家人朋友的关系不尽相同，因而他们感到孤立的倾向也不尽相同。比起单身女性，单身男性更容易觉得自己和家人疏远，因此可能体验到更多的孤独。
另外，男人爱竞争的天性使得自己和别的男人分离开来。这往往也妨碍男人结成足够亲密的友谊，来帮助他们排除孤独。
然而男人通常能很好地隐藏这种孤独。男人绝少能承认自己孤独，也绝少谈论自己的孤独。如果他们在极罕见的情况下这样做了，社会的大多数人，经常还包括当事人自己，都会无一例外地认为这是他们个人的失败、过错，是他们缺乏社交能力的结果。
根据吉娜·莱韦特在她《放开孤独》一书里的观点，在极端的个案里，无法承认并解决孤独问题可能导致有害的行为模式。为了证明他们是人群中的一员，或者忘记他们不是人群中的一员，酗酒、赌博、吸毒以及性行为成为一些男人沉湎其中的替代品，借以自毁性地掩藏内心深处的孤独感。
男人同样会犹豫是否该寻求专家的帮助。有多少生活环境达到中等水平以上的孤独男人，利用了他们可以获得的治疗或咨询服务？不是很多，特别是当男人们仅仅因为孤独而求助时。在某些情况下，这种犹豫是有道理的。并不是所有专家都会对孤独这个问题抱有同情。虽然很多医生承认孤独是一个很严重的社会问题，但是当男性专家提到孤独时，引用的几乎总是女性的个案。
这种孤独以及与别的男人隔离的感觉，使许多单身男人匆匆结婚。当某位女性带来的亲近感以及她抚慰的能力是结婚的主要原因时，那么即使男人没有意识到这一点，他也很可能最终走向离婚，以及/或者出现身体问题。
婚姻无疑不是孤独的解药。除非当事人有能力在情感上接近另一个人——我们社会中的很多男人都不能——否则婚姻对他们来说只是另一个孤独的处境而已。
事业成功而蓬勃地发展、用任何人的标准来评判都是“真正的男人”的已婚男人，常常感到孤立和隔离，甚至在婚姻及家庭生活中也是如此。以下是这样一些男人的肺腑之言：
“我的孩子不用和妻子说话的方式来和我说话。我感到被排斥。”
“我总是不得不树立强大的父亲形象，维持家里的秩序。即使当我和妻子、孩子们在一起时，我也经常觉得和他们隔得很远。”
“我妻子和我有很多朋友。但他们其实是她的朋友以及她朋友的丈夫。有时我觉得和整个群体格格不入。”
“我自幼就有孤独感。我有很好的父母和很棒的妻子。为什么会这样？我不知道。我只觉得和其他人聚不到一块儿。”
虽然很难改变男性的心理，而且随着他们年纪的增大，要改变他们就越难，但我们整个社会必须使我们的丈夫、儿子、兄弟以及伴侣认识他们的身体，接受健康评估，并改善总体的生活习惯，以便使男性获得我们认为他们应得的活力和长寿。