Imagine your teenage son comes home from school and casually mentions that his friend is recovering from jaw surgery. Jaw surgery?! It turns out that this friend became convinced that if he broke his own jaw, it would regrow stronger and his face would be more manly, with a firm, chiseled shape that he is confident will command attention and admiration.
A recent article on the website Parents, highlighted by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt (author of The Anxious Generation), says this story is no longer so far-fetched. A trend called “looksmaxxing” is bringing intense body image pressure to teenage boys. The jaw-breaking idea really is one of the recommendations, along with many other “impossible, irrational, and dangerous”1 physical standards this community encourages young men to pursue.
Not all the recommendations are destructive. It’s wonderful when a teenage guy showers regularly, styles his hair, and thinks about stewarding his body with healthy food and regular exercise. But even these innocuous ideas have an insidious motive in them.
Where Did Looksmaxxing Come From?
The origin of looksmaxxing comes from two overlapping online communities, the red pill community and the incel (involuntary celibate) community. Both groups claim that a prominent feature of society is the oppression of men—“red pill” refers to the awakening someone has to a suppressed societal reality, such as feminists’ supposed domination of men. The intense pursuit of physical attractiveness is meant to increase boys’ “SMV”, sexual market value, which refers to the likelihood that women will find them attractive.”2
Sadly, the incel and red pill groups have a twisted view of women and how relationships work. They believe that unless men are super-attractive, women will not show any interest. They also believe women use men for financial gain and social-climbing agendas. These groups have a poor view of women but will do dangerous things to become attractive enough to be in a relationship with them. A double-minded man truly is unstable in all his ways (James 1:8).
How Can We Help Teenage Boys?
As sad as the history of looksmaxxing is, the impact on teenage boys is even more heartbreaking. It’s locking young men into spiritual confusion, pain, and fear. Thankfully, God’s word equips us to understand and respond to this destructive trend. We can help teenage boys resist the captivity of looksmaxxing’s “plausible arguments” that seek to enslave them (Col. 2:4). We do this by helping them to recognize the pressure and to worship their powerful, gracious God.
The world’s pressure is real, but your son might not realize the force it’s exerting to shape his mindset. Looksmaxxing pressures boys to embrace an unbiblical value system and to worship an idol. This idol—the idol of attractiveness, power, and romantic relationships—demands sacrifices. Some of the sacrifices are in the form of time, effort, and money. But other sacrifices demand actual harm to their bodies. These sacrifices seem reasonable in return for the promises of blessings this idol makes. It also seems like refusing to make these sacrifices will only result in loneliness, rejection, and despair.
Help Them to Worship God Alone
But the Bible exposes this lie of idolatry. Think of the Israelite exiles in the Babylonian court of King Nebuchadnezzar. In Daniel 3, the King commands all the people in his realm to bow down to the idol he has created (Dan. 3:4). The consequences for refusing to comply are dire; they will be thrown into a fiery furnace. The choice is clear: bow down or burn.
The three Hebrew men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, would not submit. They not only rejected the pressure, but their worship of the true God guided their response. They answered the king like this: “Even if we don’t escape the consequences you have threatened, we won’t bow down. We won’t forsake the God who created us. We won’t disown the only God who brings salvation and has all power. It’s better to risk death than to turn away from him” (see Dan. 3:16-18).
They believed God would deliver them from death or through death: “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (Dan. 3:17).
Imagine your son or student being so convinced of God’s preciousness that they refuse to be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ (2 Cor. 11:3). Helping teenage boys to recognize the pressure they face will ready them to fight it and will help them to deepen their worship. We want our teenage boys to know that true worship will guide them to make godly decisions and remind them of God’s steadfast love and care.
Three Truths That Fuel Our Worship
God helps us to overcome the lies of idolatry with the truth and beauty of who he is. Meditating on truth fuels our worship and displaces the world’s false promises.
- God created you for his glory. Your life has a glorious purpose, not because of how you look, but because of who you represent: God himself. “…bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made” (Is. 43:6b-7).
- God values the purity of your heart and the Christlikeness of your character. People may judge you based on appearances, but God doesn’t. “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7).
- God claims us as his own. God gives us the strength to worship him and to reject the idols of the world that claim they can bless us. “For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Cor. 8:5-6).
Equip Them to Fight Worldly Pressure
The apostle Paul worked to equip believers to fight destructive, worldly pressure too. In Titus 1, Paul encourages his spiritual son Titus to rebuke “empty talkers and deceivers” who are upsetting “whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach” (Titus 1:10-11). These empty talkers said that circumcision was necessary for salvation. But by itself, this physical sign was never the way to salvation. Jesus’s sacrificial life, death, and resurrection clarified what this bodily mark illustrated.
Circumcision of the body points to the cutting away of the sinful heart. God performs this spiritual surgery on us, removing our rebellion and discarding our bondage to sin. These empty talkers said that followers of Jesus needed a physical mark on them, while God says the mark that matters is in the heart (Rom. 2:29). Paul urges Titus and the church to be sound in faith, which means rejecting the commands of these people who have turned away from the truth of Jesus (Titus 1:14).
I’m stunned by the relevance of Paul’s admonition to Titus. Empty talkers are still upsetting whole families, teaching lies about how to obtain the good gifts God has created. Looksmaxxing offers the blessing of romance and relationship to those who make physical sacrifices to be attractive, but it can’t deliver.
Young men who are followers of Christ might not be swayed by looksmaxxing to turn away from the Lord Jesus as the only way to salvation. But they may be deceived by its promises and tempted to improve their appearance by physically harming their body —thereby making a sacrifice to a cultural idol. In fact, just like in Paul and Titus’s day, we are all tempted to follow the prescriptions of false teachers who stir up fear that God’s blessing and favor can’t come from Jesus alone.
In God’s kingdom, blessings don’t come because of physical attractiveness, but because of God’s glorious grace. We don’t earn God’s favor. It’s freely given to us when we are united to Christ through repentance and faith. God sees Jesus’s righteousness when he looks at us, and he blesses us according to his character, purposes, and goodness. God’s design for marriage, family, and relationships is based on love, not appearance.
Three Truths That Remind Us of God’s Provision
It’s easy to forget God’s promises amid the noise of the world. God grows our faith as we savor his promises of power and provision.
- God’s love is the only thing that will satisfy you. Ask him to give you an appetite for his love and for his love to nourish your soul. “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days” (Ps. 90:14).
- God will graciously give you everything you need to know, trust, and follow him. We can be confident of God’s care when we remember Christ’s sacrifice to reconcile us to God. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32).
- God says you can be effective and fruitful as you grow in him. Your looks don’t hinder God’s purpose in your life. “For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:8).
Looksmaxxing claims to offer a way to the blessing that God promises comes only through his grace. As we equip teenage boys to recognize this destructive pressure, we also hold out the glory of our great God. God will help them defeat the world’s agenda as they worship him.
Is your child struggling with eating disorders or their body image? Check out some of our additional resources on that topic.
- Haidt, Jonathan. 2026. “What has been happening to girls for years on social media is now happening to boys — impossible, irrational, and dangerous.” Instagram.com. https://www.instagram.com/jonathanhaidt/p/DUfACROjT3N/. ↩︎
- DeLuca, Asleigh N. 2024. “Why ‘Looksmaxxing’ Is Putting Teen Boys at Risk.” Parents.com. June 25, 2024. https://www.parents.com/why-looksmaxxing-is-putting-teen-boys-at-risk-11756133. ↩︎
