A small fold of skin spills over his swim trunks. Tufts of fluffy hair frame a soft belly button. And those big beefy arms are calling out for a cuddle. Forget six packs: If a man doesn’t have at least one love handle, I’m not interested. And countless women feel the same. Trust me.
America went wild this week over a juicy set of topless beach pics; hirsute and extra hunky Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce vacationing in the Bahamas with his songstress sweetheart Taylor Swift. The power couple looked blissfully happy and comfortable in each other’s company. Travis was even so bold as to rest his hand on Taylor’s butt – a PDA I very much respected.
LOVE HANDLES: Kelce was teased for his dad bod while on vacation in the Bahamas with Swift – but the truth is, us women love it
Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed scrolling through the various shots, as I imagine many ladies did. I also found the images rather refreshing. All too often, celeb beach snaps are a stream of stick-thin bodies or ultra-cut abs, only attainable via LA surgeons or starvation.
But here was a couple in fantastic shape who looked… well, healthy. However, according to a frighteningly large swath of social media, Travis’s physique wasn’t something to be marveled at. Apparently, this back-to-back Superbowl champion has ‘dad bod’ – a slightly chubby body that you might expect from a middle-aged man with a lapsed exercise routine and a beer habit. The inference: he’s let himself go. (Reminder that Superbowl LVIII was last month).
Astonishingly, Travis, 34, felt compelled to defend himself against such ludicrous slurs, taking to his podcast to tell fans he’s only carrying a bit more weight because he’s on Spring break and enjoying a well-earned offseason period.
How ridiculous. Famous females have been subjected to criticisms about their perfectly healthy bodies since the dawn of time. And now we’re applying the same toxic standards to men. First of all, as a health and science journalist, I can categorically tell you that Travis’s missing six pack tells us absolutely nothing about his actual health.
As we know from his on-field performance, Travis is built like a house. That we can’t see every vein and muscle sinew is down to a slightly higher level of body fat than that of a Dior runway model. That’s not a bad thing.
Studies have shown that men with less than 13 percent body fat (considered ‘athletic’) are at risk of critically low testosterone – which can play havoc with everything from mental health to the immune system.
Intriguingly, other research even suggests that too much abdominal-muscle mass raises the risk of heart disease. Scientific conjecture aside, it hardly needs stating that Kelce – a man with more than a decade’s worth of elite sport under his belt – couldn’t be further from ‘unhealthy’ if he tried. Sorry to break it to the weightlifting-obsessed gym bros, but a lifetime of regular physical activity is a better predictor of a long, disease-free life than the amount of visible muscle on a body. Studies have long proven this.
For at least six months of the year, Kelce and the Chiefs are fed a meticulous calorie-controlled diet consisting of an abundance of fresh fruit, vegetables and lean meats, prepared by team chef Kumar Ferguson. But more to the point, Kelce’s physique is pretty impressive even as it is now, in ‘offseason’.
What man wouldn’t kill for his killer pecs, sturdy thighs and broad shoulders? If this muscular, manly – and frankly incredibly attractive – build is deemed ‘overweight’ and lazy, what chance is there for the rest of us? And crucially, what message does that send to a young generation of boys with rising anxieties about the way they look, and what constitutes ‘normal’?
Severe eating disorders are booming among young men. Some major US diet-related clinics have reported higher than 100 percent increases in male inquiries since 2022. Particularly rife is a type of exercise obsession known as ‘bigorexia’. Boys become obsessed with bulking up and getting more ‘cut’. They dedicate hours a day to the gym and tracking their food and ‘macros’, all at the expense of their mental health.
Social media and the proliferation of ‘perfect’ bodies is of course part of the problem. But so is a culture that writes off one of the greatest athletes in the world as a bit pudgy. As it is, there is so much more to life than the way we look. All my girlfriends would agree that a man with a perfectly preened and sculpted torso signals one big red flag: he spends far too much time in the gym (and looking in the mirror!).
Where would a girlfriend fit into that schedule? Would we get to enjoy all the best parts of dating – the lazy weekends with ice-cream tubs and big bowls of spaghetti? Truth is, women couldn’t care less if you’ve got a bit of a belly. If anything, it takes the pressure off us having to rock up looking like a Victoria’s Secret model every night. In the immortal words of Cindy Lauper, we just want to have fun. And Travis’s handsome frame tells me that he does too.
