Battle of the sexes: Men's Health vs Women's Health Magazines

Thought of the day:

I'll do anything to procrastinate actually writing a thesis..

I just noticed something about how nutrition is marketed differently to men and women. My first observation on the difference between the men’s health magazine and the women’s health magazine is the headings.

For Men’s Health the home page gives you: Fitness, Sex & Women, Health, Nutrition, Weight Loss, and Style.

For Women’s Health the headings at the top of the page are: Fitness, Sex & Love, Food, Weight Loss, Health, Beauty, and Style.

I like how Women’s Health drops the implied heterosexual relationship in the heading, going with “Sex & Love” instead of “Sex & Men” but don’t like how they changed “Nutrition” to “Food.” Food is a much simpler and less precise approach to consumption.  

My second observation of difference is the visuals presented in each magazine. I cut out all the pictures shown on the front page of the nutrition section to compare them side by side. Observe.

www.menshealth.com\nutrition 

www.womenshealthmag.com\nutrition

 The take home message is that men eat a lot of meat and women don't eat a lot of anything. Despite the women's link being called Food, there is really more drink pictures posted on the page. Doesn't that go against the conventional wisdom that you shouldn't be drinking a large amount of your calories? Also, there is nothing wrong with meat in moderation, but large amounts of meat consumption have drastic health consequences on the body. Why not give the men some moderate sized portions of more diverse food and show the ladies a steak?