Why is my 13-year-old son coming under pressure to get buff? | Letters

In response to an article about ‘looksmaxxing’, one reader is worried that their young son wants to go to the gym and get muscular. Plus Julie Taylor on the long-term damage of cosmetic procedures

It’s normal to have concerns about your children playing on your mind. Over time, many dissipate or are superseded, but occasionally they crystallise into a deep-seated fear, and that’s what happened to me on reading your article on young men “looksmaxxing” (From bone smashing to chin extensions: how ‘looksmaxxing’ is reshaping young men’s faces, 15 February).

For some time, my 13-year-old son had been badgering me to buy him weights and to join the gym. I said that children his age were too young to lift weights as their bodies were still growing. Recently, a friend told me she had been able to add her 12-year-old son to her membership. I’ve been wanting to get back into the gym and, thinking it would get him off his phone, I signed up both of us.

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