A new study has revealed what we already knew: Gay men are vain! So vain in fact that 48% of us would agree to die a year earlier if they could have the perfect body.

This so called ‘perfect body’, which 10% of gay men surveyed would die 11 or more years earlier for, is based on the standard westernised view of attractiveness: tall, lean, muscular, toned body with clear skin and a full head of hair. And whilst gay men are highly more likely to enforce this unrealistic image upon themselves, we can at least rest a little happier knowing that straight guys have the same anxiety, albeit not as high; 91.2% of gay men compared to 77.4% of straight men.

With tabloids constantly calling women out for gaining or losing too much weight it’s easy to forget that men are just as easily susceptible to body image anxiety. Rosi Prescott, CEO of Central YMCA stated that “(today) gay men are under enormous pressure about their bodies, and we believe that a lack of body diversity in the media, including the gay press, and a relentless focus which values people based on appearance, may in part explain why gay men are particularly susceptible to this issue.” He went on to say how this unhealthy issue is causing record numbers of men to take steroids or to have unnecessary cosmetic surgery to achieve what is often an unattainable or unrealistic body image idea.