The Adonis complex: The secret crisis of male body obsession.

That desire to look "buff," "ripped" or "bulk" - also known as the Adonis complex - is driving many boys to take performance and image-enhancing products.

To counter such pressures, the school has added a compulsory subject to its personal development curriculum warning about the health risks of anorexia, "bigorexia" and the Adonis complex.

Associated problems have been discussed as the Adonis Complex, an issue more general than muscle dysmorphia, and largely attributed to society's unrealistic standards of ideal bodies for men.

The evolution of that ideal is the subject of "The Adonis Complex" (Free Press), a new book that tries to demonstrate how concerns about body image have come to dominate, and tyrannize, many American men.

Mr. Pope and his colleagues, who published their findings this spring in "The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsession" (Free Press), are not the only ones convinced that masculinity is under siege.

In 1996, "The Adonis Complex" reports, American men underwent 690,361 cosmetic surgical procedures, including 217,083 hair transplant operations and 54,106 liposuction procedures, not to mention surgery to augment their pectoral muscles, their buttocks, their calves and even their penises.

While many upwardly mobile men today seem to be developing "Adonis complexes" - satiated with gym memberships as well as plastic surgery and cosmetic buying sprees - men in the late 1800's and early 1900's displayed a similar fascination with their bodies and the idea of physical metamorphosis.

This anti-Evel had not rowed since childhood and he did not look like the buffed subjects of the recent book, "The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsession," but once he wrapped his long hands around the oars he knew he would finish.

Pope's research focus is on substance abuse, especially anabolic steroids (His research in this areas includes work in the area of men and their body image, particularly in his book the Adonis Complex where he argued that the media fuels body image disorders for not only women but men as well.

“Men are increasingly getting the message that their muscles are important, that appearance matters too,” said Katharine Phillips, co-author of “The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsession” and professor of psychiatry and human behavior of the Alpert Medical School at Brown University.