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Okay, I admit that I’ve been a Men’s Health reader the past eight years or so. It’s written in a breezy “guy-to-guy” sort of style that only occasionally makes you think, “Are all these guys gay?”
Generally, though, most of the topics are squarely centered on the things guys care about the most: justifying that extra beer and chili dog, getting laid and various adventure sports (other than getting laid) that sound exciting but would really be pretty miserable. It’s fun reading about someone biking 100 miles in the mountains; it’s hellish trying to do it yourself.
I’m not any healthier than I was when I started reading the magazine, but at least I know what I should be doing. And because I was raised on the wit and wisdom of G.I. Joe cartoons, I firmly believe that “Knowing is Half the Battle!” Of course the other half of the battle always involved attacking Cobra headquarters with laser tanks and ninjas, but that’s a different topic.
All my years of reading Men’s Health, coupled with my background in publishing and copious free time, have led me to the point where I can pretty much create a cover to any Men’s Health issue in about 30 seconds. Here’s how you can, too:
1. Cover Photo: You need a hunky guy with either great abs, great arms or a pant size of 30 inches or less. Ideally you should pick one of the regular six Men’s Health models or some minor TV actor. His shirt must be completely non-existent, be a tight t-shirt, or be a button down shirt breezily blowing open, indicating that shirt buttons are a constriction meant for lesser men. Your model is always, always wearing pants…often baggy. Put a guy in biker shorts on your cover and your circulation plummets (insert your own pun here) in every market except San Francisco. Your photo must be a sort of sepia-toned black and white. Heterosexual guys are apparently afraid of color.
2. Masthead: Always red. Done.
3. Above the Masthead: You always put some hyped up tagline, indicating that this is a “special” issue that shouldn’t be missed, unlike the other 11 “special” issues throughout the year. Valid taglines: “GET STRONG WITH BEER AND SEX ISSUE!”, “LOSE YOUR GUT WITH OUR ADVENTURE SEX WORKOUT!” or “BEER SEX NO FAT GOOD LOOKING BEER ISSUE!” Making sense is optional. The implication is that if you miss this one issue your life will probably be empty and unfulfilling and you’ll likely die in a week.
4. Headlines: This is where the formula seems to vary a little bit, but there are general patterns you can follow.
If you have a particularly arresting photo, or you are just feeling lazy, you can go with the standard “big number” + the phrase “ways to improve your life” headline. The number of tips in the magazine and the number listed on the cover are, of course, completely unrelated. Just pick a number that sounds impressive. It isn’t like anyone is going to actually count the tips. The number “759″ seems to have some sort of special significance to the writers of Men’s Health as you can see here:
And at one point the editors of Men’s Health were stuck on the number “789″ but I’m guessing that was just too many health tips in one magazine, so they had to scale it down a bit for the readers. One time they tried cramming in 1,001 tips, but mailmen all over the nation protested carrying the extra-heavy magazine. The protests eventually turned violent and the staff of Men’s Health, trapped in their plushy publishing offices by hordes of angry torch-wielding postal employees, agreed to sign a pact saying they will never again break the “800 health tip” mark.
As a side note, other nations already have this rule in effect. In Australia, for example, there are strict limits on how much information you can cram into a magazine. Men’s Health had to actually cut out some pages for this international edition seen here.
There are other headline patterns you can use for your front cover. Generally you have to have one “big” story which involves the phrases “BURN FAT” or “GROW MUSCLES” near the top of the page. This large headline rarely has anything to do with SEX because, you know, that would give the impression that guys were only interested in one thing.
The rest of the headlines on the magazine cover are smaller and can pretty much be put together like refrigerator magnet poetry. Here is a general list of words and phrases you should always use in your Men’s Health cover headlines:
| MUSCLE | SEX | FOOD | BEER | LOSE FAT |
| SEX | FITNESS | AMAZING | MIND/BODY | SECRET |
| ABS | FIGHT | COOL | LOSE YOUR GUT | SEX |
| ULTIMATE | LOOK GREAT | SEX | WORKOUT | EASY |
| SEX | SEX | SEX | SEX | BEER |
Using this table we can see that headlines such as “ULTIMATE EASY ABS,” “COOL MIND/BODY LOOK GREAT SECRETS,” and “AMAZING SEX SECRET BEER WORKOUT” are all perfectly acceptable. The editors of Men’s Health are an imaginative lot who rarely allow the contents of the magazine to dictate what makes it to the cover story. If they were ever pressed in a legal settings to explain the headlines they could easily argue that every article in the magazine has something to do with beer, food, losing weight or sex.
As you can see, it really is pretty easy to design a Men’s Health magazine cover. While I like to poke fun at the magazine, I have to say that I really do enjoy most of the writing and can understand why it is one of the most popular men’s magazine’s today.
Of course, in the time it has taken me to write these little tips, and the the time it has taken you to read it, we all could have been exercising and, more than likely, lost some weight and built some muscle. I guess I’ll just renew my subscription to Men’s Health and worry about that later.
I wonder what’s going to be on next month’s cover…
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One Response to “Why I Think the Cover Editors of Men’s Health Magazine are Overpaid”
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Anonymous Cog says:
My wife started to get pissed because of all the photo’s of hot chicks. Some people…
AC
March 29th, 2006 at 7:22 pm