When asked about health issues men tend to be concerned about two areas of their appearance overall. Middle aged men are concerned abut their weight and hair loss. This may be an indication of the break down in marriage which is putting more and more men back on the streets and into the dating game. It also may be an indication of the effect mass media has had on our view of what men and women should look like. Most people we view on TV and in the movies are thin and the men have a full head of hair while the women have classic beauty. These are hard ideals for most men to emulate but they are trying.
One of the most popular self help areas is slimming tips for men. This is an interesting development because we are bombarded with two conflicting advertising messages that end up making money for both sides of the weight loss spectrum. What I mean is on one side we have the restaurant and food manufacturers who are spending millions of dollars to entice us into eating. They have perfected their message to a point where we really have very little control over our eating habits (or we take little control). On the other hand, are the diet and exercise people who are telling us the only way to happiness is to lose weight and get in shape. These two ideas are conflicting and it seems for now as though the food sellers are winning.
Men are also very concerned about dealing with the natural phenomenon of male pattern baldness. They look for hair loss help in all kinds of places because the mass media holds a full head of hair up as the normal condition for men. In reality, 60% of men will experience hair loss due to this problem so actually thinning hair is the norm not the other way around.
Maybe all these mixed signals are also the cause of another male medical trait: more therapy with mental health professionals.