Mamamia Team Monday 9 August 2010 9:50pm

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What could possibly be a worse job than being a female model? Nothing. But being a male model isn’t a picnic either it would seem. Dannii Minogue’s model boyfriend Kris Smith has cursed the fact that he has struggled to regain his pre-baby body. What, is he all stretch marks and leaky boobs? News Ltd reports:

Kris Smith's post-baby body (!)

KRIS Smith has revealed that becoming a dad has played havoc with his diet and fitness regime – making him extra nervous for last night’s parade. The charming Brit stripped down to a pair of budgie smugglers in front of 400 VIPs (including Jennifer Hawkins and his parents) to launch Myer’s spring/summer collection.

Smith told Confidential he has not been able to train and diet as meticulously as for last year’s show. Being a dad to four-week-old Ethan – whom Smith describes as “awesome” and “so well-behaved” – was much more important.

“Last year I cut out sugars, white flours, sweets, alcohol, anything that was bad and was training really hard,” he said. “I’ve tried to do it again but obviously the arrival of our son and being up at all hours of the night and just snacking on whatever you can, kind of put a stop to all that. It’s difficult when you have no real sleep pattern or no real eating pattern.

“Hopefully I’ve done enough.” It’s hard to believe but Dannii Minogue’s boyfriend swears he was “massive” as a kid and must exercise constantly.

Have you ever looked at those male models on the cover of men’s health and fitness mags and wondered….how? Why? So much attention is given to the pressure on female models to be perfect, what about how men are feeling when they look at this ridiculous images? And what of the models themselves? How do you even GET a 6 8 12-pack anyway? Vanessa Raphaelly writes…..

Ripped (also digitally altered)

This man is 33-year old Daniel Martin, who is one of the most successful models in the Health and Fitness industry.

A model whose ripped bod is in great demand to star on the cover of the type of men’s magazines who promise “6 packs in 6 weeks” and “Abs of steel, now.”

And as these mags are called things like Men’s Health and Men’s Fitness, and not “Men who Faint Like A Girl,” you would imagine that the models they choose to cover their magazines, would be role models of exemplary fitness, as well as attractive to look at.

Oh ha, ha.

Here is what Daniel Martin has to say about what it takes to get in “cover shape. “The images on the covers of those magazines are misleading. They are selling a lie. They may represent what many men has come to see as a fit body, but in reality, they are probably in the worst shape they have ever been. A lot of those men will be dangerously dehydrated, putting a huge strain on their livers, feeling groggy and dizzy, struggling to keep upright. It isn’t fitness, you couldn’t do anything sporty in that state – you couldn’t even run for a bus without collapsing.”

Is that a 12-pack? (digitally altered)

He continues, in an interview for Grazia Magazine: “There’s huge pressure to stay in tip-top shape, 100% of the time. Every time you get a call for a casting you must have as little body fat as possible and look as ripped as you can. The average man has 15 to 189% body fat, while with fitness models it can be as low as 6%. It’s incredibly hard to maintain that ultra-lean look before your immune system is hit and you start getting sick.”

Grazia report that trains 6 times a week for 90 minutes at a time, he continues: “You have to work so hard to maintain that level of muscle definition it can become like a drug. ”

And there’s the eating, or the not-eating.”If you restrict calories, dramatically, as I do on a daily basis, your body can go into ketosis – starvation mode.” he says, ” But before a shoot, he carbo-loads for 48 hours to flood his muscles with glycogen, which makes them look more rounded. The glycogen also draws water from the skin, making the veins more obvious. Before a shoot he also eats wine-gums, as the sugar makes the muscles stand out.”

Finally, he reveals that the day before a shoot, in order to avoid hydrating themselves, some of the models will not drink water at all, but will drink an entire bottle of wine, and then, on waking up, the next morning, start their shoot day with another glass of wine, to dehydrate themselves.

“It’s bad for your liver, but it’s part of standard preparation to look the very best and dehydration shrinks your body.”

Shame.

[This article first appeared on Hurricane Vanessa's blog ]

Do you think there’s increasing pressure on men to be cut? Have you ever met an actual man as ripped as those digitally enhanced images on men’s health mags? Do men angst about it do you think? I think younger men do more than older ones….