Lean, with washboard abs, this model is featured on the Abercrombie and Fitch Web site. How does that make the average guy feel?

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NEW YORK — That guy in the Abercrombie & Fitch ad doesn't have a head, but does it really matter? His upper body is as sculpted as Michelangelo's David — all chiseled muscle, washboard abs and not a follicle of chest hair.

You don't just see him in the provocative ads for Abercrombie, the youth-oriented clothing chain: On billboards and in magazines everywhere, it seems, there's a male Adonis — buff, slick, hairless. How does it make the average guy feel?

Maybe not so great. With all the attention these days on the effect paper-thin models and actresses can have on girls and women, it's worth noting that men can suffer from body image problems, too.

"Body image is not just a concern for women," says researcher Deborah Schooler, who's looked into the adverse effects such media images can have on male self-esteem. "It affects men, too, and it demands attention."

When looking at men, researchers ask the wrong questions, Schooler argues.

"Asking men about just weight or size misses the boat," Schooler, a research associate at Brown University, said in a telephone interview. Men are more concerned aboutother "real-body" factors, like sweat, body hair and body odor, she said.

In a report published last spring and recently featured in Seed magazine, Schooler and a colleague found that the more their 184 male college-student subjects looked at media — especially music videos and prime-time TV — the worse they felt about those "real" aspects of their bodies.

Further, they found that such negative feelings impacted their sexual well-being, in some cases leading to more aggressive and risky sexual behavior. (The study appeared in the journal Psychology of Men and Masculinity.)

Does all this mean it's unhealthy for "Average Joes," as the researchers titled their study, to aspire to the lean, muscular body idealized by Michelangelo and Abercrombie alike? One prominent promoter of men's fitness argues no — unless, of course, it's an obsession.

"What's good about that image is that it's the picture of health," says David Zinczenko, editor of Men's Health magazine and a best-selling diet author. "With diabetes rates skyrocketing over the past 70 years, a little more 'lean' wouldn't hurt us."

Zinczenko points to all the role models with healthy and realistic bodies that have graced magazine covers: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Tom Cruise, Hugh Jackman.

However complicated body-image issues are for men, it seems they will always be more fraught for women.

"There's just not the same requirement for a man in our society to look a particular way," says Deborah Tolman of the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality in San Francisco.

"As a man, you can look terrible and still be very well respected." As a woman, "you can be the best debater at school," Tolman says. "But if you're fat, you don't get people's admiration, despite your skill. That's not true with boys."