So much for the dad bod. David Beckham, who turns 50 this year, has released pictures of himself modelling his new bodywear collection for Hugo Boss. Bodywear, if you’re unfamiliar with the term, appears to mean underwear. In the corresponding ad clip, Beckham returns home for the day in his vintage Aston Martin, Bond-style, but he can’t wait to rip off his sharp suit and slouch around in a leather armchair in nothing but his tighty-whities. He has set the bar very high for middle-aged dads who like to relax by sitting around drinking in their pants, Homer Simpson-style. If you feel at all self-conscious about your soft, squishy, beer-induced centre, Beckham’s new line of smalls will not help.
In recent years, the dad bod seemed to be on the verge of widespread public acceptance, even cautious celebration, and a lot of us were congratulating ourselves on our timing: it was not uncommon for men of a certain age to emerge from the first pandemic lockdown looking like a heap of overproved sourdough. We felt ourselves, however unintentionally, to be in the dad bod vanguard – more oven-ready than beach-ready; soft, saggy and proud.
Beckham appears to be out of step with the new paradigm: untimely ripped, as Shakespeare might have put it. Not to mention bronzed, sculpted and manscaped. And it’s the end of January – exactly the time when we all inquire about what kind of refund we can claim from our ill-advised, unused new gym memberships. It would be fair to say he just doesn’t get it.
Unfortunately, his outsize influence on our culture probably means a shift in acceptable minimum standards for the male physique, especially for us 50-and-overs, who thought we’d safely escaped scrutiny. If it’s possible to look like Beckham at 50 – and it seems it is – then the rest of us are transparently not committed enough. You don’t get that kind of physique by standing on one leg while you brush your teeth.
What Beckham’s body really represents to the average fiftysomething male is, of course, the slippage of time – all the fitness that might have been ours but isn’t, because we never set aside the hours. And now those hours are gone.
But even if you were committed to the amount of training required, who among us, in the last decade, has had the time? Forget exercise – I don’t think I could have even managed to collect as many tattoos as Beckham has. I look at all that ink and think: how would I juggle the appointments?
Looking like David Beckham is David Beckham’s job – the rest of us have other jobs, and precious little spare time to spend drinking in our underwear in whatever condition our condition is in. The Finns call it kalsarikännit – the art of drinking at home in your pants – and this important form of relaxation would be completely undone by any obligation to look like Beckham in his signature bodywear.
Nobody looks back on their deathbed and says, “I wish I’d done more crunches.” Unless you happen to be dying of something directly caused by a lack of core strength. In which case: for shame.
